Breakout
by GalliaDavia
Summary: Sethra is heading for an outtime, meeting Victor Creed. Rated M for language,sex,violence. PLEASE please review - there is no use continuing if it doesn t match the character!Story s still developping, chapter 37 up and finally complete!
1. Outtime

Disclaimer first : I don´t own any of the characters of X Men and I don´t publish this to get money out of it in any way – it´s just for fun and for all who liked the latest X Men movie as much as I did!

As the story was written originally in German, I hope that translation didn´t spoil it. The following chapters I´m working on are written originally in English, so there is hope :-) Reviews are very welcome !

Thanks to Korn and Katie Melua who delivered the right music to write about guys like Victor :-)

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„…you should really…." The voice on the other end of the line stopped. "Sethra, are you listening ?" She rolled her eyes. "I´ve got enough of *you should, you must, you have to* – you know ?" Her own voice sounded sharp and unreal in her ears. "You know, it was really childish to…" She had enough – why didn´t the bastard get that ? She grabbed the mobile and smashed it hard into the car´s panel. Plastic splitted. She threw the remains of the mobile in the back. "Connection broke", she commented to her own.

She sighed with relief as her brother´s blockhouse came in sight. It had been quite a long journey having to drive the whole distance herself and she was up to a shower and finding a bed. It was in that moment that she realised that something was wrong there. The wooden entrance door stood half open. The small veranda showed signs of somebody having had some meals there recently. "Shit", she whispered. Whoever had settled in there, he had certainly heard the car, not to mention the stereo, blasting some Korn record, exactly catching up to her mood. She immediately regretted having smashed the phone, but that was not helpful. She had no weapon with her, only some oc spray – not her favourite. She glanced around. If she remembered things right…

He had already heard the car when it left the main road and turned off to the house. Whoever had taken a wrong turn outside there was disturbing what could have been a nice baseball evening. As the car stopped in front, he got on his feet, growling.

The engine fell silent. The noise stopped, too. He waited. As nothing happened, he left by the window, checking the court in front of the house by glancing around the corner of the house. The car was empty. The wind blew from the wrong direction – no chance to get a scent. He glanced at the scruffy shed leaning against one side of the house.

Sethra thanked her brother for his military sense of order. There were some old small weapons in the gun rack, a shotgun, some sporting guns, munitions. She grabbed the shotgun – seemed to become a classic scene there!

She slowly opened the entrance door widely, using the barrel to push. To her surprise, it barely caused a sound. She noticed indignantly that the TV was turned on – everything else was quiet. The kitchen, where the door directly led to, was empty, but showed signs of recent use. Somebody had obviously finished off everything eatable to be found, leaving the empty cans mixed with loads of empty bottles and dirty dishes on the surface. She quickly checked the wooden staircase that led to the upper floor – nothing. She moved on to the door opposite to the entrance, leading to a short corridor. At its end lay the living room, somewhere on the left the bathroom, if she remembered everything correctly – she hadn´t been here for years.

The small bathroom was empty. She took a deep breath. Shouldn´t be too big of a problem to handle some half-drunken hobo. She pushed the door open, causing some noise. The intruder hat settled on the couch, one elbow lolling on the back rest, the other hand holding a bottle of whiskey. He seemed not even surprised about somebody entering by half breaking the door. That kind of impertinence astonished her. "Hey!" she shouted. Victor cocked his head. His nose had really not betrayed him. He grinned. Then slowly turned his head towards her. "What ?" he asked. Sethras eyes narrowed. "Get up!" she commanded. He sighed exaggeratedly. He took his time to store the half-finished whiskey bottle on the small table in front of him. Then he rose slowly. Sethra was promptly reminded of an advise one of her instructors had given her about the mistake of underestimating the opponent – something about a mistake you might only make once. Her opponent was at least a head taller then her. Massive frame, bulky shoulders, close cropped dark hair, beard, wearing some black jeans and shirt, heavy army boots. As he glimpsed the gun pointed at him, his grin broadened and he raised his hands tauntingly. Claws and fangs – Sethra silently complimented herself to his fine piece of misjudgement of hers. "You don´t like baseball, do you ?" he asked mockingly. "Get your stuff and get lost!" she barked. He noticed amused that she was good – her smell told something completely different about her level of fear than her appearance. She immediately took aim at him as he drew a step closer. "Stay where you are!" Bored, he dropped his hands. "What shall it be now ? Leaving or staying ?"

Sethra hated the guy for playing the clown – it was just a fact that men always underestimated women because of their smaller physical strength, but there was no difference between a man or a woman firing a gun – this was just stupid! "Don´t think I won´t shoot, asshole", she informed harshly. "Will you ?" he teased in a greasy tone. Sethra had a short guess about what she had done to attract idiots like this one in high numbers recently. As he made another step, some picture frame next to him exploded as she fired. "Don´t mess it up!" she hissed, reloading in a flowing movement. Appalled, she noticed his claws growing longer – and that he obviously felt and enjoyed her fear. He hadn´t even flinched. "Charming", he commented drily. For a moment, there was silence apart from the commentator, whining about some bad playing tactics. His muscles tightened barely noticeable. As he moved, another shot fell, ruining his own attack. Taken by surprise, he glanced at his leg – that little bitch had actually shot him. Sethra watched him looking down in horror. The shot had been perfect – it should have knocked him down at least. She started reloading automatically, but a creaky sound told here that something blocked the bullet. Their eyes met for a moment – then he came after her.

She fled across the corridor. He had had inappropriate angle to jump and crashed into the doorframe before he turned in the right direction. Another leap brought him close enough to grab her leg. He failed to get hold of her, but she fell, crashing to the floor heavily. She managed somehow to regain control of her body, struggling to get out of his reach. Deeply growling, he grabbed her leg again, claws slipping of her boot and ripping her jeans. As soon as she gained a half-upright position, she dashed the lower end of the shotgun right in his face. Bones broke with a hideous snap. "Bitch", he mumbled, tasting blood. She finally managed to get on her feet, but lost the gun. She was only half across the kitchen when his body banged into hers. She was thrown against the working surface next to her, the crash knocking the breath out of her. Unable to move, she realized horror-stricken that he moved as her shot had never hit him.

She gasped as he drew closer. He pressed her against the furniture behind her, blocking every movement with his body. Her gaze unwillingly followed the slight movement of his hand, a single claw touching her temple teasingly. She tried to draw aside, her bruised rips causing a stinging pain in her chest. Something suddenly draw his attention. He lifted her dog tags out of the neckline of her shirt, again using a single claw. He laughed viciously. "Like it the hard way, don´t you ?" he asked, menace ringing through every word. He shook his head slowly. Whoever had originally got on the idea, to allow women to join the army was one of the most ridiculous things he could think of. He dropped the tags and pinned her tighter against the working surface behind her. His nose had unmistakably broken when she had hit him with the gun, but aside from some blood covering his chin, there didn´t seem to be any damage. He didn´t even seem to be aware of any injury. "So what´s next ?" he asked quizzically, feeling his arousal rising with every instant. He should have known better. "Fuck you", she muttered. She noticed with relief that this time, he _had_ flinched when she rammed the knife in his body – then his blow made her faint out.


	2. Escape

Sethra had a hard time drifting back to consciousness. When she finally managed, she found herself alone in the small guestroom of the house. Her body hurt as hell, but there seemed no further damage of any kind – thank God for that! Her hands were tied up at her back with some piece of cloth what made it difficult to get on her feet. She was locked in. After listening for a short while, she decided that there was nobody else around the house. She examined the window and found that even with her hands tied up, she was able to open it. It occurred to her that the guy couldn´t be that stupid – but it was worth a try.

In fact, nobody stopped her.


	3. Little promenade

This chapter takes place some weeks after Sethra´s first meeting with Victor.

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Exhausted, she sat down, leaning back against a tree. It was late afternoon. She checked for her ankle in the only loosely tied boot. It was so swollen that she feared not being able to get back into the boot if she took it off now. Only trying made her wince. So she stretched her legs and just sat for a moment. Great idea to get on this trip alone, without anything to eat, little to drink and without taking a fuckin´ mobile phone, although she was not sure if any connection to a network would have been available in the middle of nowhere. Nobody would look for her, as nobody knew that she had left. She took a deep breath. No reason to panic. The ankle was surely not broken. It would only take some time to get back home, and it would be a hard trip to get there before darkness fell and she lost direction. She had gone through things like this as a job! There was another fear lurking there in her head, but she tried hard not to think about further possible things her body would surprise her with.

This morning, her aunt had called her to inform her about the latest news from her employer. The Army of the United States told her exactly what she had been expecting – considering her *temporaribly instable health*, her suspension was to be prolonged *until further notice*. She was instructed to use the free time to do everything that was needed to recover. As the administration had still not been able to change her postal address in their files, the letter had landed at her old apartment. That gave her former boyfriend another impulse to call her. She was so tired of his unwanted and unneeded advise, just his arrogantly patronizing tone was enough to make her livid.

As constantly smashing mobiles was just not adequate, she decided to go for a walk, making a trip into the forest around the house, leaving the mobile. She had thought of that as a good idea to sort out all the stuff she had in mind. As a consequence of that, as she walked through landscape for at least two and a half hours, lost in thoughts, she had tripped. Lost her balance. Went down some slope. Congratulations at that! Seemed to be a rather dangerous tactic to clear her mind.

She had been sitting there for some minutes to take a rest when she decided she had to hurry up. She had just managed to get back on her feet without putting to much weight on the injured ankle when she realized that she felt observed. She glanced around and gasped slightly. There was a sturdy figure, standing only some fifty metres away from her between the trees. She recognized him immediately. "Shit", she muttered. Running was definitely not an option.

She tried to keep her breathing steady when he drew nearer. "Not running ?" he asked mockingly in this deep, awkward tone. She skipped an answer. That bastard hat watched her the whole time she had been resting, perhaps longer – he knew about her ankle, no doubt. He smelled her fear rising, but she was good – she just returned his look. Only small things gave her away. He gave her a wide smile, fully exposing his fangs. "What about your leg ?" he asked, when she remained silent. She gulped. "What about yours ?" she asked hoarsely.


	4. Bloody kiss

He only chuckled in response. „Ever guessed that I might have left without our little scuffle ?" She felt that it would be wise to keep things calm, but could not suppress a sarcastic response. "And the next thing you´ll give me is that you were just about to clean up." He smirked. "So what about your ankle ?" he asked. She tightened. "Sprained", she muttered. "And how did that happen ?" He touched her chin, turning her head a little to take a closer look at the bloody scratches decorating her temple. She flinched, knocking his hand aside out of a reflex. He lifted an eyebrow, but didn't comment. She bit her lip as she couldn´t see where this may lead to. "So you´re gonna need some help getting back, huh ?" Some persistant voice in her mind told her that this was correct. Some other, obviously saner one told her not do this and run. Well, nice dilemma! He was not her first choice to help her out of this – but presumably the only she could get at all. "Last time you gave me a hand I ended up tied up and locked in." _Asshole, _an inner voice added. "You stabbed me", he accused her casually. "You broke into my house!" His grin broadened again.

Her face showed her thoughts quite clearly for a moment. "What do you want ?" he asked politely. "An apologize for leaving out the raping ?" Oh, she hated that guy. He glanced at the sky – the weather was changing, and not for the better. "So that´s a no ?" he asked, returning to his offer. Against better knowledge, she accepted. "It´s a yes." He nodded. "Then come on." He made a summoning gesture to pick her up. She hesitated, having not considered _that_ point before. "Come on", he growled. "You won´t make it the whole way back like this anyway and you will never get your foot out of that fuckin´ boot again if you try." He twitched at her tags, teasing. "Never sprained your ankle in the field before ?" She gave him a dark look, as she knew he was right. It was a bad idea to try walking back and there was too big of a difference in height between them – he wouldn´t be able to support her properly. She gave a frustrated sigh. He grabbed her backpack, widening the straps. "But you also won´t make it to carry me the whole way", she suggested. He ignored her comment, pulling on the backpack. When he reached out for her this time, she led him lift her up.

Being carried like a child on Daddy´s arms made her want to die out of shame. Again, congratulations to herself. On the other hand, there had been no alternative, besides of spending the night out in the woods – and still not being able to get home next day on her own. As a consequence of her accident and the following recovery period, she had lost a lot of weight. In fact, he obviously didn´t bother about her weight at all. When she detected the sound of flowing water near to them, she straightened. "Could we get some water ?" He nodded. "Yeah." He changed direction. The small stream was nearby. He put her down cautiously. "There´s a water bottle in the backpack." He checked for it and filled it, took a drink and refilled it for her. "Thanks." She glanced at him while dipping his hands in the water, damping his forearms. Like herself, he was in navy green army trousers, together with a fitting shirt and jacket. No tags. "So what were you doing around here ?" she asked out of curiosity. Wind had come up and she shuddered slightly. "Poaching", came the unaffected answer. At least he was honest. She gave him a sharp look. The next question slipped out before being considered. "Using what ?" He had obviously no weapon with him. He gave her an annoyed stare. She bit her tongue and tried hard _not _to look at his claws. "What about you ?" he asked back. She smiled weakly. "Oh, I tried to cool down." "You´re off duty ?" "Sick leave", she answered. "To be prolonged now", he smirked. "Seems to happen every time I meet you", she shot back. He only grinned again. "What about you ?" she asked. "Resigned." Then she felt the first raindrops falling. "Great", she grumped.

It was at least an hour after nightfall when they finally reached the house. She was wet and chilled to the bone, water dripping from her hair and clothes. The rain hat soaked the ground and had turned it in one slippery mass. He had prevented them three times from falling in the last moment. It rained hard and constantly. The surroundings grew pitch black. When he finally sat her back on her feet on the veranda, steadying her until she had found her balance, she trembled slightly. No doubt, she owed him something. It took her a moment to unlock the door. She turned her head as she realized that he wasn´t following. "Not gonna come in ?"

His eyes narrowed. He gave her a menacing smile. "Didn´t your mother tell you not to allow strangers in ?" His tone made her shudder unwillingly. "I owe you a favour." He nodded slowly. The next things happened too fast as that she could have avoided them. He grabbed her neck, pushing her hard against the wall in her back with this body, knocking the breath out of her; kissing her hard. He bit her lip as she started to struggle, feeling irritated as she didn´t react to that. He grabbed her hair and forced her to look up to him. "I´ll be back for that favour." Then he released her, disappearing in the rain. She collapsed on the veranda, blood running down her chin.


	5. Visiting

**Sorry for the confusion with chapter 5 first - some stuff got mixed up, but should by alright by now :-) for those who had already read it - forget about the pizza :-)  
**

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When she checked her mobile phone the other day, she noticed that Matt had called around 15 times the day before – well, she hadn´t been at home.

She looked great – her face was scratched, her lower lip was swollen, her left arm and shoulder bruised, her ankle still swollen. She decided to leave it at one look at the mirror for that day. She had looked worse than that not too long ago and, thanks to that nice genetic defect of hers, she felt not much of it. As she was not presentable for that, she stayed at home, plucking up her courage and starting to look through her brother´s stuff. Checking it felt like picking over his bones.

Victor smiled. That girl was obviously unteachable. The entrance door stood open widely. The old stereo blasted some undefinable noise, irritating his sense of hearing. It made it hard to hear other sounds through that. On the other hand, that girl had to be half-deaf already. The noise spoiled the fun of appearing just behind her back without causing any sound.

She had settled down on the couch, turning her back to him. She was wearing more or less the same stuff as last time. Only the hem of her bright red bra peered out under her shirt in a very unmilitary way. She had tied her hair together in a messy bun. The shoulder she had fallen on looked still badly bruised but she didn´t seem to care. She was bare-footed, the sprained ankle tightly taped by now.

The room was a mess. Pictures covered the couch, the small table, the floor. Mixed up with documents, folders, books. A handgun was lying next to her on the table. He smiled. Wouldn´t be that helpful – she should also have learned that now. Some other sound rang through the noise – the mobile phone besides her vibrated and blinked. She didn´t seem to notice at first, as she sat still. Seconds later, with an astonishing short and powerful move, she grabbed it and fired it right to the opposite wall. He followed the movement of muscles in her arm and shoulder with delight. Plastic exploded on the stone. "Just fuck you!" Her voice sounded hoarse.

He moved slowly forward, put his hands on the backrest left and right to her bare shoulders. "Pissed ?" he asked, a deep growl, but so near to her hear ear that she would still hear it about the noise of the stereo. Expectedly, she jumped, knocking the photo album from her lap to the floor. Next moment, her elbow came up in a violent backward blow. He blocked that one easily, grabbing her wrist, twisting it to make her turn. She should have cried out of pain, but didn´t. Still, she gave way and turned to him. Her face was drowned in tears. They stared at each other for a moment. Then he opened his grip and she turned back. As he circled the couch, she grabbed the remote control and reduced the sound volume to a whisper, wiping her nose in a quite un-ladylike way. "Need somebody to comfort you ?" he asked in this weird gloomy voice, looking down at her. She looked in an irritating way vulnerable and stubborn at the same time. "Not going to use that one ?" he asked, gesturing against the weapon. "We´ve been through that already, haven´t we ?", came the calm answer.


	6. Some history

People had found about her genetic defect early in her life. A child not crying when falling on its knees or knockin´ its head was suspicious. She then found out that it was quite helpful to get along when quarrelling with an older brother. And as she still felt pain, even if not as early as others, there was not too big of a risk that she would get seriously injured without realizing immediately.

So she had always thought of this deficit as one she could live with easily.

Talking about boys, she was a kind of late bloomer. Finally, when she had met Craig, her first boyfriend, it was him she lost her virginity to at the age of almost 19. It took her until that event to realize that there was another problem – as the guy tried not to hurt her, giving her some nice vanilla sex back then, she wouldn´t feel a single thing the guy was doing to her.

Unfortunately, later on, when she met Matthew, the problem stayed exactly the same. He never understood. She had tried to lead him there. She had tried to talk to him. She had tried to make herself believe that it didn´t matter, ´cause she loved him. Always givin´ the tough guy to others, he was just not the type to manhandle a woman – bad luck!

He had never taken her ambitions for a military career too serious though she had been talking about that since they first met. It came as a kind of shock to him when she joined the Army. But he got over that. In fact, he had never been too keen to hear much about her job – so she spared him the details.

Before that little incident that sent her to sick leave for several months, she had been training the freshman in close combat. As a consequence, there had always been guys who had tried to bed her, trying to give the hero for their fellows. None of them had ever succeeded.

It had been around that time when she realized that the relationship to Matt was badly damaged. That guy only saw that girl from High School, as it seemed. It seemed impossible for him to take her serious doing this job. He gave her the feeling that she was only promoted for her lovely nose instead of her skills. While she commanded people at work, he would always try and patronize her at home. And when they met some dubious people on the street, he would bring him in front of her, the pencil pusher protecting the soldier. It was just ridiculous.

Then she met Jason.

A new colleague, same rank as hers. Jason matched all the weird ideas about what a young proud soldier should be like. He was tall and muscular, a tough guy, forthright, handsome. In fact, he was a not too smart brute. And he was the first guy she actually felt when he bedded her. Bad day for love. That nice event should - under normal circumstances - have marked the end of the relationship with Matt.

So she loved a guy she wouldn´t feel and felt a guy she would never love. A dilemma which would certainly have given her some stuff to think about. Actually, she had only two days after that before some guy freaked out during training, smashing her to the worst.

Sethra couldn´t remember the incident later. She was told that he had attacked her from behind, anyway. She hadn´t seen it come. He had been sent from another company recently. Some kind of authority problem. The few times she had met him, there had never been the slightest, though. Well, until he broke her skull that day.

It took her several months to recover. In fact, she got the impression that Matt found it somehow embarrassing to tell people that some hulk had broken his fiancé´s skull. The next thing she realized was that he was quite confident that she would finally accept that she had chosen the wrong job and resign. As she told him that she was certainly not going to do that, he was stunned.

Her physical and mental recovery had taken months. Then she had to find back her way into the training, being sent to a military rehab – as one of the physically healthiest people there, it had been a quiet but very efficient way to get back in form. To sort out her thoughts. To make some decisions. Finally, she had returned to duty.

Three days later, she collapsed in what the doctors would later call an epileptic seizure. She was off on sick-leave again. That happened two days before she turned 29.

Endless tests and examinations followed. Unfortunately, they never found any of all the typical symptoms of epilepsy. Still, she sometimes collapsed, fainting soon after her legs had given way. When she came back to consciousness, her whole body would hurt as if she´d been involved in a very bad brawl and she would feel weak for hours.

In the end, they told her that they were not able to find any reason for these incidents. They told her that she couldn't be sent back to duty, facing such unpredictable attacks. That she would be granted a prolongation of her sick-leave as there was some military doctor somewhere who had specialised for such things and that the guy should be given some time to check her case. Well, the files. She refused to put any hope on that. Instead, she tried to face the unbearable fact that this was the end for that career – with the possibility left to accept a nice job at some office – fighting paper-warfares.

Two weeks later, her brother died in a plane crash, on duty somewhere in South Africa.


	7. Compliments

Alright, so this chapter will contain more compliments…

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He glanced at the picture on top of the mess at the table. Some blond guy in an Air Force uniform. "That pussy ´s yours ?" She snuffled. "That pussy is my brother." Be correct, Seth. "Actually, he died two months ago. This is his house." She asked herself silently why she was telling him this. "Doesn´t look similar to your stubborn antic", he stated. She leant back. "He was my half brother. My mother married again after David´s father died. When both my parents had died, he came back from abroad to take me in." "Nice deal", he commented grumpily. She cleared her throat. "That guy backed me up. No matter what." She shuddered slightly, suddenly feeling how cold she had gotten while sitting there motionless for some time. She felt him staring at her. His face showed some odd expression when she finally looked up to him. "So you´re back to rape me today or just to beat me up?" she asked.

He snorted. "You look like shit." She rolled her eyes. "You know, I´m getting tired of that", she returned wearily. She looked puzzled for a moment when she noticed that his grip had already left some bruises around her wrist. He had realized that she hadn´t even moaned or flinched when he had squeezed it moments before.

He grabbed her beer from the table and dropped in the big wing chair opposite of her. "You feel pain, do you ?" She nodded slowly. "Yeah. But got a very high pain barrier." "Mutant ?" That came out in a curious tone. "No. Just a genetic defect." "Isn´t that the fuckin´ same ?" Some hint of grim resignation rang through that. "I understood that the x gen is an advancement", she answered. "This is just a deficiency." Still, he couldn´t see a real difference there. "Made it easier to keep up with the boys in basic training, didn´t it." She ignored that. "What you need", he lectured, "is a damn beating." Her eyes came up to his immediately. "Sorry ?" she said, indignant. "You can´t sleep, do you ? Can´t stop thinking. When have you had your last training ?" She stared at him. He took a swig out of the bottle. "Get your body tortured a little – stops the mind freaking out."

The impression on her face changed. Went draconic. "Don´t gimme that!" She sounded quite authoritarian suddenly. It made him grin. "Give you what?" "That kind of advice!" she barked. He felt the sudden rush of aggression in here. The strength of it was kind of amazing. "Oh I hate guys like you, flexing muscles whole day, letting me graciously partake in their wisdom!" He let her rage, feeling nicely entertained. "I´m so sick of you guys giving me that crap every fuckin´ day in training. *Give ´em pain first and they won´t give it to you*…*Drill them to exhaustion and they won´t fuck with you.*…there is no need to instruct little pumpkin - I can handle it !" "Yeah. That´s quite obvious." He put the empty bottle down besides the chair. "Stop fuckin´ with me like this, will you! I´m am not a 13-year-old brat!" In fact, she looked quite alike a 13-year-old brat right now. Besides, her voice had reached a level and frequency quite uncomfortable for his hearing. "Stop shouting at me", he warned. "Oh shut up and …"

His movement had been too fast to recognize it properly.

He jumped forward, catching her throat in a single flow, making her choke. "I said stop shouting at me!" She struggled for breath when he loosened his grip. Something had made her forgot how unpredictable that guy was. Getting closer to her let him make feel her anger even stronger – stubborn kid wasn´t going to accept easily that she was in a bad need for some relief.

He grabbed her waistband and lifted her over the backrest of the couch, putting her back on her feet in front of him. She gasped. She wasn´t _that_ of a lightweight. "You…" "Shut up!" he roared, so close to her that she followed that order immediately. That guy had a drill sergeant´s soul. He watched her straighten automatically, focusing a point somewhere behind him. He cocked his head. They had done a good job at her. "What…" "Will you really make me repeat my order ?" he asked in a dangerously light voice. She slightly blushed catching up on that little game he was playing, taking advantage of well-trained reactions she had taken in so deeply that she carried them out like out of reflex. Her tension broke. She assumed that he had made it to a higher rank than hers – he was obviously used to command people around.

She felt him draw closer to her. "I haven´t only started to fuck with you yet", he menaced. Staring at his chest, she realized again how massively he was built. Still, she had learnt that. Had been trained to tackle guys like him for years. "Dare to attack me and I´ll break your neck." Her eyes narrowed – she was obviously evaluating this threat.

She didn´t refuse to follow him when he dragged her to the guestroom, closing the door, shoving her hard against it, face forward. She tried to avoid smashing against the wood too hard. He was behind her, his hands roaming over her body. She felt them as soft warm spots on her skin – meaning that another girl would surely have felt fondled roughly. Claws ripped her shirt, not caring for the scratches they might leave beyond that. He clearly wouldn´t take prisoners. He grabbed her hair, reaching for the buttons of her trousers, ruining that piece of cloth in an instant, too. Then he forced her to bed.

He held her upright for a moment, pinning her with one arm against his body. She assumed that it was not very wise to got this guy behind her back. "You don´t know any guy like me", he stated gravely, sliding down one claw-like nail alongside her body. He made her bend over, twisting one of her arms behind her back, disabling her to absorb the crush. She made a low sound of shock, being brought in a degrading position like this. All senses tensed up to breaking-point, she more felt him growl than she heard him when he grabbed her hips. There was not much delay. A mixture between cry and moan escaped here when he invaded her violently.

Not being able to oppose anything against this thrusts, she was completely in his hands. God knows, she felt him. What he did to her gave her a thrill somewhere _deep_ inside, making her body burn like hell at the same time. His grip tightened, turning into torture, as he smelled her arousal and blood. Good. He also smelled tears. Not unknown to him in similar situations. But these didn´t flow out of pain or fear, but out of shame. He made her doing this and she feared his strength, but was at the same time in a weird way eager to go find out about her limits. There was no complaint, and as she could not adjust her body to his rhythm, she just offered constant resistance to it. He hadn´t been with a woman for months and as he was not willing to hold of, it took not very long for him to reach a too long delayed climax.

When he was done with her, she sank exhausted on the covers beyond her. Her face burned with shame for letting him doing this to her. At the same time, her body told her unmistakably that this had been good, more than good, while her mind screamed of raping. She felt him getting up, but didn´t care, breathing heavily, cautiously exploring her feelings towards what just had happened.

It took just a few moments until he returned, laying down besides her. "Turn around", he ordered, reaching over her to put something on the nightstand next to the bed. As she didn't react, he made her, forcing her on her back. She avoided his gaze, but he didn´t care for that.

He grabbed for the bottle he had brought with him, crashing its seal with one hand. "Open your mouth." When she didn´t follow, he growled. "Will I have to make you ?" he asked. That made her finally look at him. He realized that it was the first time she did since he had dragged her out of the living room. Then she obeyed, bedding her head back on a pillow, closing her eyes. He held the bottle too high as that her lips would have touched it, letting a small amount of the strong liquid flow down into her mouth. The whiskey burned his way down her throat, setting a counterpoint to the pain she felt in lower regions of her body. His arm moved. More of the amber coloured liquid hit her body, streaming down in a narrow trickle along her throat and chest down to her belly, followed by his mouth. The strong aroma filled the room. He took his time exploring her body, feeling her muscles tighten under his claws.

When he returned his face to hers, pinning her body with his this time, she was taken by surprise. There was no use denying the fact that he was ready to go for a second round. He gave a deep sarcastical laugh. "You didn´t think that I´d been already through with you." She suddenly moved and he brought her down gripping her hair and forcing her head back to the pillow painfully. "Forget what I told you ?" he hissed. "Didn´t know that a kiss is classified as attack nowadays", she murmured. Her words would barely have been understandable to anybody else, but he understood them quite clearly, ringing through the silence of the house. "I also told you to shut up." He dodged her just straightly forbidden answer by kissing her hard.

She realized too late that this was only his cover to enter her again, steadying her while he turned to his back, bringing her on top of him. He let her straighten up, watching her carefully responding to the rhythm he set. Her hands were loosely on his chest. He lazily noticed the comfort of taking her that way, with no need to prevent attempts to escape constantly. He grabbed her wrist instinctively when she reached out for him. His eyes followed hers – he realized that she had only tried to grasp the whiskey bottle. He refused her that. Slowly shaking his head, he reached for her wrists, forcing her arms behind her back, pinning them there with his forearms. He tightened his embrace and forced her face down to his chest doing that. She didn´t resist, willingly accepting his command.

He got her laid a third time later that night. After that, she fell asleep. Not waking up for at least eight hours for the first time after weeks.


	8. Disbelief

She woke up late the next morning, a little confused at first. When the first memories came up, she blushed. It would have been nice to imagine, but her body told her definitely that she had not dreamed the things she was remembering. Victor was gone, and so were his clothes. Her gaze hit the bottle of whiskey on the nightstand. For a moment, she considered having a swig. She decided against that – that wouldn´t change things. She listened for a while, but the house lay silent. The room was a mess, her clothes scattered over the floor. The bed was crumpled. Well, she felt similar.

Finally, she decided to get up. She cursed her brother for not having a bath tube – that would have been quite the right thing now. As she stepped under the shower, she glimpsed her reflection in the mirror above the washstand and jerked around, for a moment unable to believe her eyes. Then she turned round, deciding that she wouldn´t take a closer look. She was just not willing to believe that she had allowed all this to happen.

A hot shower had never felt better than this morning. She felt dizzy. The last night seemed very unreal to her now. Had this been rape ? As she hadn't done a single thing to stop him, apparently not. She sought after feelings of abuse; there were none. She pictured him for a moment. The menacing look. These eyes, deep and dark. It made her shiver. He hadn´t forced her. Had not beaten her, had not insulted her. He had merely been leading the way – and she had not dared to go her own, too scared where that would lead her. He would have let her touch him. But she hadn´t dared. He had let her kiss him. God, she felt like 16 again, as kissing was the most outrageous thing she could think of. He had offered her everything and the only thing she had accomplished was some French kissing. She blushed, overwhelmed by shame once again.

She decided to go for some jogging as soon as her ankle had healed. She _definitely_ had to stop her mind thinking.


	9. Strange happenings

Sethra couldn´t say how _this_ had happened to her.

In a wicked way, she got used to this guy. Appearing out of nowhere and without the slightest noise, he enjoyed making her jump or blush or both. After that first night, he had made her wait for two long days and nights before he visited her again. He visited her again after that – things developed into a nice little affair Sethra couldn´t apprehend completely.

He wouldn´t talk much about himself or in general, but she didn´t care much about that. Besides that, she learned to distinguish a fine sarcastic teasing from this bitter cynicism of his.

She didn´t know what he did or where he went when he was not with her, but she decided that she wouldn´t ask.

Actually, she had no idea how old he was. At least ten years older than her, she calculated. But there was something odd around him, giving her the impression that he had seen too much of the wicked things life would bring you face to face with, trying to break you. She didn´t asked for that, either. At the time being, it was of no importance.

Along with the bruises and banter, he brought her a never known confidence around man. He might tease her about her attitude or cooking or her habit of smashing mobiles. But he never teased her about her awkwardness to get undressed in front of him or her shyness to try out in bed whatever had entered her mind. And he smashed her objections, one by one.

From all the things she didn´t know about him, she knew two things for sure – if there were things that would lighten his constantly more or less dark mood, it would be sex and food.

He would be gone when she woke up in the morning, but would never leave her in the night after making love – or whatever one might call it.

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Victor was not quite sure how this had happened, either.

For instance, he liked her body. She was small compared to him. She had a little too much weight for her size, but he preferred that to the half famished skeletons walking around. In fact, there were a lot of muscles under that skin, too. He liked her calm voice, when she was not just freaking out over something. Her principle of not asking lots of questions. Her way of casually wearing oversized camouflage trousers. And definitely, he liked that she wouldn´t start to cry five seconds after he laid hands on her with the clear intention to bed her.

She was not as afraid as she should have been. Clearly a mistake – that girl was naive, and stubborn in addition. There seemed to be no objections against his mutation and its manifestations, neither the apparent nor the invisible ones. She had witnessed his healing ability early enough. She was surprised to find out about his highly sensitive senses of hearing and smell, but didn´t bother.

He had already realized in that first night that she was somehow afraid of letting him look at her body. She tried to avoid any striptease situation in bright daylight if possible. As he used to visit in the late afternoon or evening, this was alright for him. She also tried to avoid getting undressed as long as any light was turned on. As he didn´t liked artificial light in general, he wouldn´t interfere. But as she wouldn´t give up on that ridiculous thing, even when getting bolder around him in bed (when undressed finally…), he enjoyed telling her that he had been able to see every inch of her from first day on. That made her call him some both unexpected as unacceptable names.

All these things wouldn´t have bothered him too much. But the undeniable proof for him being in trouble was that he realized that he was jealous of everyone else being around here.


	10. Unleashed

„I think I´ve lost another ten pounds." Sethra sighed, checking the mirror again. This shirt fitted better. "The dream of every woman – loosing weight without any diet!" Donna commented. She took care for her parents business today – they owned the one and only shop in town. "This fits", Sethra nodded. "As I told you." Donna smiled. Not that there would have been a wide range to chose of.

The woman smiled to each other. They had met in town when Sethra arrived, both remembering long gone shared summer holidays. They were about the same age, Donna only a year older than Sethra. She had known David, too. Used to have a crush on him as a teenager, actually. Ironically, her younger brother seemed to have a crush on Sethra nowadays. As she remembered him as a naughty pain in the neck and as he had reserved any prejudice of a good redneck for himself, Sethra was not too pleased about him making advances to her. He was waiting outside the store, engaging some neighbour in a pointless debate to have an excuse for watching her.

Donna and Sethra changed a look. "He´s a pain in the ass", Donna stated, her tone a mixture of resignation and lenience. "Okay, I´ll take these." She handed the shirts over to Donna. The blond woman got serious. "I don´t wanna scare you, darling, and I know you are trained in the Army and stuff, but there is some kind of freak around, looking for trouble." Sethra gave her a surprised look, pretending innocence. "What about this guy ?"

Donna shrugged. "There´s not much _real_ information. He has been seen at Beth´s bar a few times, months ago. A maniac, if you ask me. I don´t want you to get hurt out there, you know." Sethra smiled. "Don´t worry." "They say he´s a former logger. Found about his wife being a mutant after years and slaughtered her, loosing his mind after that." "I really…."

Donna grabbed her forearm. "Seth, they say he might be responsible for other womens death, too." "Some descriptions of the guy available, then ?" she asked, suddenly feeling sick. Donna nodded. "Yeah. A big guy, all muscles, quite ugly. Sturdy. Short hair." Sethra shifted her weight. "Anything else ?" Donna nodded. "They also say the guy is tattooed all over. Hiding in the woods from the police." She respired. _Not _Victor. "Just take care, will you!" Sethra nodded. Donna cocked her head.

"You´re not afraid ?" she asked in a slightly amused undertone, while taking the money Sethra handed her. Sethra smiled. "Nope!" Donna bent over the counter, to keep things in confidence. There was no reason for that, as they were alone in the shop. But the two women had started a shrewd game of pretending conspiration – driving Sethra´s unwanted devotee mad. "Or is there a reason that makes you feel so safe ?" she whispered. Sethra laughed, pretending to put heads together with Donna. "Maybe", she answered mysteriously. Donna gave her a faked shocked stare. "I hope you haven´t tracked down some loving family father of our lovely community instead of my handsome brother!" "Oh, I wouldn´t dare!" Sethra realized that Donna might have glimpsed some of her bruises, which was not really hard to do. "You´re with that ranger-guy, aren´t you?" she asked, putting her chin into her hand, still leaning on the counter. Sethra had no intention to answer this, but felt herself blush. Donna chuckled. "You´re really a tough girl, darling!" "You know him ?" Sethra asked in surprise. "No", came the honest answer. "I´ve seen him a couple of times around, but rarely. Looked ill-tempered." That was Sethra´s turn to chuckle. Then an elderly woman entered, disturbing their chat. Donna handed her the shirts, packed in a bag. "Just take care!" "I´ll do!"

When Victor appeared in the evening, she told him about the gossip Donna had provided. "Have you seen anyone around ?" she asked him, when they sat on the veranda after dinner. Dinner had already lightened his mood and with the night still to come, he looked quite relaxed – as far as one migh call a guy like him ever relaxed. As she still avoided to ask him directly about his whereabouts or affairs, this was the only possible way of asking. "Scared ?" he asked back. She smiled at him. "You know, one unpredictable lunatic around is really enough for me." He just lifted one eyebrow, lazy after dinner. That only meant that she would have to pay for that later. "So have you seen anybody out there ?" He closed his eyes, leaning back on the old fashioned garden swing, folding his hands behind his head, pinning her where she sat by settling his long legs over her lap. "No", he answered in a blunt voice. "And as you´ll be in for my entertainment tonight, there´ll be no need to worry about that."

As she rarely went to bed alone these days, she didn´t worry too much, in fact. But she skipped the daily jogging tour for the following days.

Some days later, she found the girl.

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She had been to town in the afternoon, having a coffee with Donna, buying another mobile phone, getting some food and the newspaper. It was about 19:30 when she drove back to the house.

She had nearly reacted too late when she recognized a body lying there on the street. The car swerved slightly when she slammed on the brakes finally. Luckily, she had missed the body.

It was a young woman, moaning slightly when she touched her. She had been badly beaten up lately, but at least she was alive and as her clothes were dirty, but not ripped, Sethra hoped that nothing else had occurred to her. Facing the overwhelming brutality of a clearly stronger opponent, beating her up just for fun, would be enough to bear. "O fuck!" Sethra cursed herself for not having put the mobile working while still at town. "I`ll help, just try and don´t move", she told the girl. She grabbed her jacket and the first aid kit from the car, putting the jacket under the girls head. "What happened ?" she asked, struggling to activate the mobile. "He may still be around", the girl whispered. She was in shock and obviously scared to death. Sethra returned to the car for a second time, hoping that the mobile would get connected soon, grabbing the handgun, loading it. The woman cried behind her, causing her to whirl around. A shot smashed the front screen in that moment. Sethra fired blindly back, taking cover behind the open door out of instinct. She fired again - the girl was in front of the car, without any protection. Then she saw him, leaving the woods on the left side of the road, crossing it slowly. That guy was an ugly brute. He seemed to be somehow injured already, but didn´t bother too much. "Stay where you are!" she commanded. The guy barked something, but she didn´t got a word of it. Besides that, he was still heading for them. Without thinking, she targeted him. Then there was a roar behind her. A bulky shadow appeared out of nowhere, leaping forward on all fours, crossing the distance between them in split seconds. More shots fell. Then the shadowy figure landed on the old trucks loading area, using the roof of the driver´s cab as a ramp. The last powerful leap brought him over the hood, heavily crashing into his target, accompanied from a sound somewhere between hiss and snarl, a sound not quite human. They went down. Victor was back on his feet immediately, glimpsing Sethra tugging the girl out of their reach. His opponent needed a moment – poor guy. "This is none of your business!" the guy shouted, obviously out of his mind, watching Victor who had started to circle him, claws extended, canines flashing. "What kind of freak are you ?" groaned the guy. "The one that´s gonna kill you", came the growling answer, slowly, in a tone full of menace and mockery.

It was a short and bloody fight. They were similar in build, but Victors ferocity wasn´t matched by the guys fury. A dude crazy to the point of saliva dripping from one corner of his mouth was no real challenge. Able to put away the other´s blows as like they had never hit him, he could have finished him quite quickly. Still, as he hadn´t been in a fight for months, this was a good opportunity to unleash the animal. Not just for hunting, but for a fight man against man. It ended with Victor catching the guy´s throat, smashing him down to the road, breaking half the guy´s face in the process. Sethra realized that Victor had taken his time to finish this – not as he needed it, but as he wanted it. He turned the guy to his back, watching him. "Ready to die ?" he asked in a satanic whisper, seeing the horror in the other one´s eyes. The clicking noise of a weapon getting loaded disturbed the moment. "That´s enough", stated Sethra behind him. He turned his head to her. "Don´t do this!" she commanded. "Not with me watching!" His eyes narrowed. "Turn around then", he spat. She put her hand on his shoulder, feeling the tense of his muscles. "Victor, s_top_!" she pled in a whisper.

His hearing told him that some siren drew closer to them. Sethra had finally made an emergency call. Victor sent the guy in front of him to unconsciousness with a vicious blow, then got up. His adrenaline level was already falling. "They will arrive soon." He got up, turning to the woods. "You´re gonna stay with her ?" Sethra nodded. He turned to the woods. "Where…" She bit her lip. He gave her a sharp look, then grinned. "Better they don´t see me ´round." She nodded, watching him leave.


	11. Wake up

Somehow, the incident with the girl changed things for Sethra. Made her wake up in a way.

She had been out here for weeks, constantly ignoring most people who tried to talk to her. The only person she called regularly was her aunt. Matt tried to call her as constantly as she avoided to talk to him. There were also friends calling her, and colleagues. On the phone, without facing them in personal, it was easy to tell them that everything was alright.

In fact, things were really bad. She had lost her health, her career, her boyfriend, her brother, and with him the last member really near member of her family. She had come here pretending she had to settle everything with the house and to take care of David´s stuff. In fact, she had come here to get used to what she was now – alone. She felt like burning down all bridges down to her. Like closing that chapter. In her case, the chapter of her previous life.

She didn´t eat enough, didn't slept enough. Drank too much, after being abstinent for years. She didn´t mind how she looked or dressed. Her surroundings were a constant mess. Weird thoughts occupied her mind. She knew she needed to think about her future, but simply refused to do that.

Under normal circumstances, she would never have entered an affair with a totally unknown stranger. Under normal circumstances, she would have never entered an affair with a guy like Victor! Honestly considered, she would have run the moment she saw him. In fact, she wouldn´t have entered the damn house finding the house occupied by somebody who didn´t belong there.

But these were no normal circumstances. This was her own little private hell. She had to admit, getting involved with Victor made her stop thinking. But somewhere inside, she knew that in fact, it should have made her start to think again.

This guy was dangerous. She didn´t know much more than his name. She avoided asking questions, but that doesn't meant that there were none. He had been in the Army, alright, but how long had it been since he resigned – and more important, why had he resigned ? Who did he live since she had kicked him out of the house – or tried so. What did he do for living ? And the question that every woman would ask herself – was there another woman somewhere ? Asking these questions always led her back to herself – what would she do for living and where would she live now ? What about that life she had planned and that had been screwed up ?

As she had no idea how to deal with all that stuff, she started torturing her body – there was nothing much to do otherwise.


	12. Liar

Something was different. He realized that immediately.

She had looked drained from first day on. There were days on which it was obvious that she had cried earlier. On other days, she was in a kind of cold blooded rage . He liked these days better as she was easier to handle then. It never took much to make her freak out.

Today, she was different.

The house was cleaned up. Well, she had tried. There were still piles of stuff around, but you could see the floor of the living room for the first time for weeks. For the last weeks, she had only done the absolutely necessary. It seemed that she had found a new place to disarrange, though, as he found her rummaging the garage.

"So, took all my credits on Tuesday ?" he asked. She gave him a short stare before she turned towards the cases she had been looking through. "Had a nice little try to explain plausibly that I had no idea who had beaten up the guy." He tried to figure out what it was that occurred to him as so different. She looked still miserable…but in an odd way straighter than before.

"They took her to the hospital. I hope that guy didn´t abuse her. Quite mad." She gave up on the boxes, throwing back some stuff she had just picked up. She turned to him. "Will you tell me something ?" she asked. He didn´t answer. Unimpressed, she folded her arms. "Why did you do this ?" He leant there at the doorframe, quite relaxed, a dark shadow against the sunlight out there. "You would have killed him, wouldn´t you ?" Her voice was calm, her tone just curious. "Gonna tell me that you aimed anywhere when you fired ? I am not blind. You could have killed him just by chance." His tone was calm, too. For the moment. "I shot out of _self-defence_", she answered. "He hadn´t done a single thing to you." "But he _would_ have done." "He wouldn´t be able to do anything to anybody if you hadn´t spoiled the party, sweetheart." "You would have killed him out of will", she stated, sounding neutral.

"Is this an accusation ?" he asked. She shook her head. "No", she returned, "I wouldn´t dare." He didn´t even deny it. Instead, he studied his claws. "That´s my nature." He took his time, giving her one of these dark looks after that. She hissed, somehow tauntingly, then relaxed. "You know, this is the worst excuse I´ve heard for years", she told him while passing by to leave the garage.

He grabbed her arm in a supernaturally quick move. "Do you think I´m joking ?" he asked angrily. He looked up to him, returning his gaze. "I thought you´re not blind", she answered quietly, rising her other forearm to the same height as the one he still grabbed, parading bruises and scars. "Do you see me laugh ?" she asked. They stood there for a moment in silence, trying to stare each other down. She wouldn´t lose ground. "Why did you interfere ?" she repeated. "Don´t think that I give a fuck about what happens to you", he growled, letting her forearm go. His crudeness didn´t affect her. In fact, she smiled. "I won´t", she confirmed, leaving.

He frowned, realizing that - in a very diplomatic way - she had just managed to beat him with his own weapons – obviously calling him a liar with a polite smile after his dull statement, brushing him off quite elegantly.

There _was_ reason to worry.


	13. Apologizes

He followod her to the house, still feeling odd.

She washed her hands over the kitchen sink, using her paints as a towel. He tracked her down there. "How´s that you´re such an annoying brat today ?" "Just curious", she answered, feeling him towering behind her. "I hate naughty broads, you know." She chuckled. "Does that mean you like me otherwise ?" Oh, there _was_ some fear, he stated. But not much, and she obviously liked to mix it with some excitement. That girl was _aware_ of playing with fire. He growled, a deep rumble in his chest. A warning. She turned round to him, touching his belly with one cool hand. She gave him a look, innocent and somehow guilty at the same time. Then she lowered her eyes. "Alright", she said. "I apologize." Another lie, obviously. He realized that he had caught a nice littly actress. Her hand went towards his waistband. She had expected him to interrupt her, but he didn´t. It occurred to him that things had been somehow easier when he had been able to punish a girl however she may had displeased him. There had been _rules_. He would give the bully, they would capitulate - not pretend to.

Unfortunately, he liked this little game here, too.

It took him by surprise when she went down on one knee to be able to follow her hands with her mouth. He grabbed her neck. She hesitated. "Sure you don´t wanna apologize upstairs ?"

She took her time to strip him off his clothes, behaving like a good girl. He didn´t stop her. She was obviously determined to do this job alone for a while, so he only forced her out of her paints. She maneuvered him down on the mattress – not easy with only half his weight and her shortness. She roamed over his body, lingering here and there, triggering his arousal, without overdoing.

He only caught her gaze once – there was an expression in it he couldn´t interpret.

Finally, she renewed the attack she had started downstairs earlier. Her mouth followed her hands down his chest and belly, and further on south, to his waist and more sensible regions. The sheer improbability of that brought him down, making him do something he hadn´t done for ages – he closed his eyes, allowing her to do whatever she want. Much to his displeasure, he lost patience with himself and her too soon.

When he brought her to her back beneath him, ripping what was left of her clothes, her eyes had changed. They were veiled by desire, but still wide awake. It gave him the impression that she wanted to endure this consciously. Her body arched under his. No fear. No shyness. And, as he remarked quite quickly, no diffidence. This would get rough.

It was Sethra´s turn to close her eyes when he entered her. She had had no idea how he would react. She had definitely expected him to not letting her prevail. In fact, he did, at least for some time.

She caught on to the consequences too late. She had made him hold off – which was exactly what he would make her pay for. He did. Made her moan, then cry. Finally, when she couldn´t endure more, she reached for the first time in her life a point of no return - free fall following.

If he had told her afterwards that _this_ was in his nature, too, she wouldn´t have denied.


	14. Blackout

So here we go, another couple of chapters done !

mandia1313 – thanks for staying with me that bravely !!!

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He made her wait for three days after that. It was not that he wasn´t around, as he had nothing else to do. But if she was so sure of being able to judge him – fine!

72 hours later, he lost patience.

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It was still morning when he reached the house – not his usual time to visit. Sethra had been in trouble the day before as her pick up had failed to start up several times. Instead of asking somebody in town to fix it, she had picked half the car to pieces. He would probably been able to fix things within half an hour. But the stubborn pig-head should try – he enjoyed watching her fail.

He had expected her to be back at work for hours, as she was nicely stubborn about things giving her trouble. But the garage was deserted, though the car´s hood was opened and a cup of coffee stood still on the table nearby; an old radio was turned on low level. He left the garage, heading for the veranda. Then he stopped in his tracks.

She lay sprawled in front of the door, without moving. He smelled that she was still alive, but checked her pulse anyway. Slow, but steady. "What have you done to yourself now ?" he muttered. There was some blood – a laceration where her head hit the ground. Her skin was cold, her face hot. She didn´t gain consciousness, only some kind of a shiver kept running repeatedly over her body. He picked her up.

He emptied her handbag on the kitchen table. Her purse, some coins, her mobile, some other stuff woman would never change to carry around. And there was another small case, containing a kind of injection set, obviously for emergency cases. The ingredient´s names meant nothing to him. There was only one phial, but no instructions about the dose rate. He went back upstairs, checking her arms. There were no visible punctures. Cursing, he started to rummage through her stuff, discovering a bigger injection set, holding several ampullae, three of them empty – and finally some information how to use this crap.

The stuff wouldn't bring her back to consciousness, but made her body rest.

It was late in the evening when she woke. She moaned unwillingly, her body feeling dumb and heavy. The slightest move took big effort. She lay in bed, still in her clothes. Somebody had pulled a cover over her. She reached for the lamp on the nightstand, squinting after turning the light on.

She remembered that she had felt the seizure coming. She had headed for the kitchen to get the sedative, but she couldn´t remember taking it. She considered that for a while, her mind working slowly. She felt no pain… The realization gave her a little buzz. She checked her arms. There was a small puncture at the crook of her left arm. The injection set was besides her on the nightstand. She leant back to the pillows. She was not willing to explore where he had learned to do intravenous injections.


	15. Favour

The way to the bathroom seemed unbearable long for her, still feeling dizzy. After tackling the stairs, she had to take a rest on the last step. She noticed in surprise that the entrance door stood open. But there were more urgent matters first.

He watched her returning from the bathroom, pacing somehow unsteadily. "Sure you should get up ?" Too tired for anything else, she gave him a stare. It would have been easier if he had brought her to the guestroom instead to the bedroom upstairs. On the other hand, she was quite grateful that he had picked her up at all.

She made it to the fridge, finally, only to recognize that he had looted it. Brilliant, especially as the car was in pieces out there. She refused to think about that now. Frustrated, she only picked a bottle of water. He blocked her way out to the veranda, still watching her. "Let me get some air, man." He could tell she was wiped out and let her pass. She sank on the garden swing, the slight movement of it making her feel sick immediately. She moved on to some armchair. He followed her.

"Is that what the sick leave´s for ?" She nodded. "Yeah." She took a swig. "And as far as I can see, this is what they will discharge me for soon." She closed her eyes for a moment. When he didn´t respond in any way, she smiled. "At least, you won´t tell me that it is irresponsibly to stay out here alone." "How comes ?" he asked curiously.

She chuckled sardonically. "Oh, you won´t believe. Some guy broke my skull." "On duty ?" She chuckled again, the expression on her face getting odd. "In training, actually." That was the irony of it. "After that", she continued", this _shit_ started. And as they can´t find a reason for this or any symptoms which would lead to any diagnosis, they can´t cure it." She felt a sudden rush of helplessness and rage, struggling to suppress it. She wasn´t going to cry with him watching her. "And as they can´t cure it, I am useless as a soldier."

She stared into the darkness around them. "You see, I´ve got comrades who got injured on duty! My brother actually died on duty! But lucky girl got beaten up by some moron in training – this is so fuckin´ ridiculous!" She sniffed. "So I kicked out my boyfriend, lost my family, screwed my career – wait another three months to kill me and nobody will ever find out!"

The last words were out without considering. Their eyes met. "Don´t worry", he answered derisively. "If I´ll get bored, I´ll release you earlier." To his displeasure, she smiled, getting up again. "I knew I could trust you with this!" She hesitated. She had no idea how she should ask for this. "You´re gonna make it through the night ?" he asked, avoiding her gaze. "There shouldn´t be another seizure within 24 hours after the injection", she answered slowly. "But what ?" he asked, impatience ringing through his voice. "I´m scared anyway", she admitted. She took a deep breath. "Will you…" She stopped. God, this was embarrassing! "Could you stay tonight ?" she managed to ask hoarsely, closing her eyes again for a long moment. It made her nearly miss his nod.

She went back to bed after that, falling deeply asleep immediately. She noticed him coming to bed hours later. In the morning, as usual, he was gone.

When she had pulled her up to have another try repairing the damn car hours later, she found out that it was done.


	16. Dispute

A couple of days later, she got a letter from the Army.

Victor had already been in a dark mood when he arrived. As there seemed to be no good mood at all, she lad learned to distinguish between the different states of bad mood he showed. Today was really bad! She had tried her best to cheer him up, with the only result that he had let her feel his bad mood a little too roughly. She hoped that the traces he left would disappear in the remaining days.

"I got to go home for some days", she told him. "Some examinations at the hospital." "Thought they were through with you." She turned to him, getting dressed. "I thought that, too." "So no need to go." She chuckled. "Gonna miss me ?" "Bitch!" he hissed. She turned again. Instead of the usual impolite but inevitable return, his voice was full of contempt – and hate. "What´s up ?" she asked suspiciously. His stare told her to mind her own business.

She sighed, putting her shirt on. "God, you´re a sourpuss today!" He had gotten up, getting dressed, too. She avoided him teasingly when he reached out for her, glimpsing his movement from the corner of her eye. As a result, he catched her with an unnecessary violent grip. She hissed out of pain under his bite. "Stop !" she shouted, only making him puncture her skin deeper. When he released her, she felt the bit bleeding.

"What is wrong with you today ?" she asked angrily. He left fort he stairs, followed by her. "There are three different appointments at the hospital, so I think this will take about two weeks." He crossed the kitchen, obviously not listening. "Will you son of a bitch stop and tell me if you´re gonna look after the house ´til I am back ?" she shouted, following. He stopped, turning to her.

"What makes you think that I care about you at all ?!" _That_ again. "What makes _you_ so scared to admit it ?" she shot back. He took another step and she brought the table between the two of them as a precaution.

"You´re a veteran, aren´t you ?!You have never learned to settle emotional distress!" His claws grew longer. She felt her blood running cold. "Shut up." She shook her head, slowly backing off. "Did raping and cutting me not work today ? Have you _ever_ tried something else than violence to settle this ?" she asked.

He felt he would lose control soon if she didn´t stop. There was no reason why he should justify himself to her. He drew closer, forcing her to back off again to keep some difference up between them.

"I don´t need you!" "Keep on pretending !" She could see his muscles tense under his clothes and felt adrenaline rising in her veins. This was to be settled now or never. "Why can´t you respect or trust anybody ?" she whispered, preparing for his attack.

Well, it was impossible.

She was barely able to avoid his first attempt. The second one succeeded. He pushed her against the wall, slapping her face heavily, then catching her throat, forcing her to look up to him. "Seems that _you_ never learned to take orders", he told her sardonically. Struggling against making her learn, he forced her to turn her head to the right. She got the threat immediately – it wouldn´t take much effort for him to break her neck here and now. Her face burned where he had hit her. He felt her pulse racing under his fingers. For her, the few moments until he released her felt like eternity. She gasped when he did and finally left. For once, she didn´t dare to tell him when he left – but she knew she was right.

She decided to travel home early the next day. There was no further reason to delay it – she was quite sure that he wouldn´t show up to say goodbye.


	17. Training

- Chapter reviewed and corrected -

Deidra - thanks and credits for review and support !!!

every one - PLEASE review!

all Stargate fans - please meet Cameron Mitchell as Sethra´s nice sparring partner (alike all the X Men characters, I don`t own Cameron´s as well!)

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Again, he lost patience.

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It wasn´t too hard to track her down. As he had done this regularly for a while, it was not much of a challenge. She stayed with her aunt, a woman in her late 60ies, who lived in a small, but neat house in the suburbs. The house was one of the last along the road. Some neglected kind of park, belonging to a bigger house located some hundred 50 meters away from the street on the opposite side, made it easy for him to observe. He had not long to wait for her.

She arrived alone, parking the pick up behind her aunt´s car in the driveway. The shabby pick up somehow disturbed the neat surroundings. She got a new haircut, but it changed her looks only slightly. As it was unlikely that she would have to return back to duty, her hair got constantly longer. She was in jeans, some close fitting shirt and boots – ladylike ones for this time. He realized that he had never seen here in tight jeans before. Privately, he preferred her in her oversized camouflage trousers.

He kept close on her heels the following days, not exactly sure about the reasons for this. She went to some gym the next day, but left early, looking irritated. She went to the nearby Army hospital. She met some girls. She finally met a guy, but he soon realized that he had to be a colleague. Famous Matt, the phone stalker, didn´t make an appearance.

Her bedroom lay to the street. She stayed up long in the evenings, sometimes sitting on the window sill for hours, staring out in the darkness, the book she had tried to read forgotten in her lap.

On day 6, a guy came to pick her up.

Victor couldn´t help but felt reminded of Wade immediately. He was tall. Well-built. Muscled. Fit. With a boyish face the girls would melt away for. Victor felt a sudden wave of jealousy overwhelming him. _He_ embraced her for too long when he arrived, touching her cheek after that and watching her closely. Still, Victor managed not to freak out immediately. There was enough time to skin that guy later on.

"I won´t tell you that you´re looking great", Cameron stated. "Hell, you look starved, Seth." She avoided his gaze for some moments. "I´m okay." "I am not sure if we should really do this", he said. She grimaced. "I am okay." She knocked two knuckles against her skull. "Healed up for months." "But there are still seizures." She nodded. "Yes. But as I am perfectly healthy according to all that fuckin´ tests, there is no, _no_ single reason not to do this." He sighed. She looked quite fragile these days. "Why is this so important ?" She shrugged. "It´s just necessary, somehow. I feel as I´ve forgotten everything. I just need somebody giving me a hand and stop thinking." He nodded slowly. "At least, I´ll try. No promises." She smiled. "Fair enough!"

"You´re not serious about that!" He straightened his own hand protectors. "I am, actually. When was your lost training ? There s time enough to beat you up seriously later on." He mumbled slightly, already wearing his gumshield. "Whatever." She took her own out of its box. "I hate these things." He gave her an unnerved look. "Alright!" She put it on, trying to get used to that perturbing device in her mouth. "Ready", she mumbled. He only nodded.

He had brought her to a gym owned by a friend of him. The place was to be renovated and closed for that, and as it was Sunday, nobody would disturb them. Will had just handed him the keys.

They started slowly. Some kicks, some blows, some faked attacks. Sethra stated that at least her body would react right to this. She felt amazed how quickly she found back into that. Still, he was merely teasing her for warm-up. She decided to get a little bit more serious.

This felt right. Their technique was different, as he had a much wider range because of his height, but they fitted as sparring partners. The always had. He avoided hitting her head or face, but grew more and more offensive as she wouldn´t give up to provoke that. As his concentration failed for a short moment, she hit him right in the face. He hissed. She grimaced. "Shorry", came the mumbled excuse, accompanied by a gumshielded grin. "Bitch", he muttered, re-attacking her. "There we go!" she pushed him. "Just let you be beaten by a woman, wimp!"

Sethra knew that he was much fitter than her. There was no real chance she would leave as a winner. Still, she would try, although she felt hauntingly slow and stiff. She soon got angry, as he obviously didn´t want to do a serious attack. She jumped forward, throwing an aggressive punch, aiming at his head. He blocked it, holding off. "Come on! Stop that crap!" she shouted. He sniffed, readjusting. "Fuck you, stop giving me the nice guy, will you!" She gave up on her defence, opening her arms widely. "Slut!" she hissed. His eyes narrowed. "You´re getting nasty, you know." "Coward ?", she tried. "Seth, this is…" Ridiculous. Fuck that guy for even thinking that. She didn´t hesitate for a single moment.

He was down to earth seconds later, struggling to avoid her punches and kicks. She stepped back, breathing heavily. He got up, sighing, then shrugged. He still wasn´t sure about this. She was far away from former performances, but the stubbornness was still there. So was rage – something he had never sensed around her. "Do this for me, Cam", she muttered. He nodded.

He brought her down several times. Smooth in the beginning, then painfully. In return, she became faster, more flexible. Another attack, another defence, following on each other within seconds. It didn´t take her long to be drenched in sweat. She underestimated his next move, crashing right into him. The sheer impact sent her down. When she got up and assailed him again, things became obvious – pure aggression delivered her power. She had no nerve for tactics. He gave up on attacking her and contented himself with fending her off. This was what she was actually begging for – being burnt out to exhaustion. Well, he could manage that.

Sethra accepted willingly. For the first time in weeks, she managed to stop thinking. Her body moved out of reflex – no thoughts needed for that. Cameron noticed that, at one point, she actually closed her eyes. Her technique was based on never losing contact to the opponent´s body – there was no need to see him as long as she felt where his movements headed to. Besides that, as she had not to demonstrate "proper" fighting techniques around here, she sometimes came up with some surprising stuff that would have fitted for any pub brawl.

Sethra lay flat on her back after capitulating finally, concentrating on the rhythm of her breath. She felt battered, but quite relaxed, too. She squeaked when he emptied his water bottle over her face. When he helped her up, he hold her just a moment too long for Victor´s taste. His muscles tightened when they headed for the showers.

"O my god, I´m gonna feel really bad tomorrow." She smiled to Cameron when she entered the changing room, wrapped into his towel. He was already in jeans, but still barefoot and not wearing a shirt. "My pleasure!" he answered, smiling back to her. She sank down on one of the benches. "Thanks, guy." "Oh, you´re welcome!" He moved closer, softly massaging her neck with one large hand. She groaned. "Are you goin´ to… " He was interrupted by somebody slamming open the door.

"Finished your _workout _?" Sethra flinched, that voice curdling her blood in an instance. She turned, disbelieving. "A problem there ?" Cameron asked. Sethra jumped up, rising one hand in a fending gesture. "Stop whatever sick´s going on in your mind!" she told the arrival firmly. He only growled. Deeply.

"Who the hell is that ?" asked Cameron behind her. She gave Victor a provoking stare. She was really looking forward to him answering this, too. "Get dressed!" he commanded. She heard Cameron chuckle. "You didn´t tell me you got a new boyfriend, Sethra." She felt him behind her – just a little bit too close, pretending. He knew that only mentioning her full name would have make her freak out – not to mention the rest of his little show!

Victor moved towards him, Sethra straight in his way. "Well, seems that he doesn´t know about me, either", Cameron continued his teasing. "Stop that !" she barked over her shoulder. Cam was a great friend, a good soldier, but perfectly blind to see that the guy he joked about was able – and willing - to kill him just for that.

"I told Victor that we would have some training, so stop being ridiculous." "Did you ?" Cameron asked. After a moment, she felt him turn, continuing to dress, surely never losing sight of Victor. "Get dressed", Victor repeated. She turned so that she could watch them both. "Will you stop this testosterone contest ?" she barked, getting angry. Victors side glance told her the order given to her months ago. _Don´t shout at me. _Cameron didn´t show any reaction at all. She sighed. "You know", she addressed them both, "I won´t get dressed here in front of you!" She turned to Victor. "I´m out in five minutes with you."

She made it out in four.


	18. Interlude

- Deidra - thanks for your support ! -

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Well, four minutes hadn´t been much to get dressed, calm down Cameron and prepare for whatever was going to happen next.

She cursed lowly when she recognized her own car in the parking lot, but realized that she wasn´t _that_ surprised at last. She walked past him without a glance or comment, throwing her stuff on the backseat.

They left the parking lot, filtering into the late rush hour´s traffic. She noticed that he had used the keys to steal the car – so he had broken into the house, too. "It´s one thing to steal my car, but you can´t break into everybody´s houses." He remained silent. Well, fine. Her mind was racing –thanks for that! At least, she had had stopped thinking for about twenty minutes when he appeared in the changing room, shouting orders to her.

"There was no need to give this guy my name", he stated minutes later. She gave him an indignant stare. "Wow, it speaks!" She was pissed. Badly. He could tell. But so was he, too. "What was I supposed to do ? Invent one ? You made a very nice appearance there, like one of the four horseman coming to claim my soul! Should I have told him you´re my procurer ?" He couldn´t just grab and bite her, as he was driving, but she could tell he felt like doing that. She turned half to him, not willing to suppress her anger any longer. "You know, I wonder how you can be so fuckin´ jealous if there´s not the slightest interest in me !" It occurred to her too late that making him angry could cause a huge crash within seconds. "I don´t…" "Stow it!" he interrupted. Luckily, they had to stop anyway. That suited her. "You know, suit yourself!" she said, opening the door. He realized too late what she was doing – no chance to get a grip on her. She slammed the door, heading for the sidewalk, leaving him in the traffic jam. She had home field advantage her.

When she finally reached her aunt´s house, the pick up was back in the driveway, key left in the lock. The house lay in darkness. She sighed, taking her time and picking up her stuff from the car´s backseat. She had half expected him to track her down on a dark spot on her way home, but he hadn´t. Some part of her feared that he might have left, but another one kept telling her that he was too stubborn for this, anyway. Regarding that, they were really alike.

It had taken her some time to cross half the city on foot, but it had helped. She had left David´s house, willing to leave _this_ whole affair behind her, too. In fact, she had been brooding over this ever since. Right now, she was hungry, thirsty and tired. Still, she felt at least a little more prepared for whatever was going to happen next than earlier that day.

She closed the back door behind her, putting her bag and keys onto the kitchen´s surface. "I´m back!" she told the silence around herself out of a weird impulse. Her aunt was visiting some friend further north for some days. At that point, she was quite sure that he knew. That freak had obviously observed her. She didn´t move for an instance, listening. There was nothing to be heard. "Where are you bastard ?" she muttered to herself, glancing around. "Watch your mouth", he whispered into her ear from behind her, satisfied to watch her jump.


	19. Thoughts

"I should have known you would visit – I just healed up." A single claw went down her neck, causing a shiver. She frowned, then dared to move towards the fridge, scanning it for something to eat. "You are behind schedule." She couldn´t interpret his tone, but there seemed to be no rage – for the moment. "Behind schedule for what", she asked calmly, "for the beating, the raping or just for getting my neck broken ?" She slammed the fridge´s door, a pack of ice cream in one hand. She grabbed a spoon and set down at the table, ignoring his stare. "You know, there are a lot of things I don´t mind", she told him, opening the pack and taking a spoonful of its content. "But there are other things I won´t accept." He put his hands on the backrest of the chair across from her, putting weight on it making the wood creak.

"Enlighten me!" he mocked.

"I don´t want my friends or family threatened in any way." She got another spoonful of icecream. "And I won´t let you beat me up when you feel like." His look followed the spoon getting up to her mouth again, resting for a moment against her lips when emptied. She sighed. "Look, that´s the deal :You won´t beat me up, you won´t threaten my people. In return, I won´t ask questions, and I won´t press you." She cleared her throat. "Well, you know the other stuff on offer, don´t you."

He slowly went over to her, stopping beside of her, his claws causing a hideous sound on the table´s surface. She stared straight forward, not willing to let him frighten her – or not willing to let him see how frightened she actually was. "And if I don´t agree, sweetheart ?" He obviously refused to take her seriously.

She took her time, having continued to empty the ice cream pack in front of her.

"Then I ´ll leave you."

For a moment, he couldn´t believe that she had really said that. She didn´t move, waiting.

"Has it ever occurred to you that this might not be an option for you ?" he asked, his polite tone making her hair stand on end. Actually, it _had_ occurred to her. She ignored the question.

"You haven´t come here to kill me, haven't you ?" she returned, uncomfortable knowing him behind her. It had been a rhetorical question. If he had, she wouldn´t be sitting here now. "So you came for something else." "And why shouldn´t I enjoy all these conveniences without any conditions ?" he mused, the threat of just forcing her ringing through every word. She felt his fingers against the back of her neck, sliding into her hair. God, she hated him for doing this to her.

"´Cause you´d have to force me", she answered, trying to sound calm. His knuckles softly touched her cheek, following the line of her jaw-bone, driving her mad. Still, she managed not to give way. "And I figured that would be quite uncomfortable for a lazy stray guy like you."

"Did you ?" Pure mockery lay in that. She couldn´t believe that he was still so even-tempered – especially after her last words. Claws touched her throat, heading down to the neckline of her shirt. Sethra knew that he _wanted_ to scare her. Unfortunately, she was running out of bravery quite quickly now. If this wouldn´t be finished soon, she would simply wet her pants.

He brought his body close to hers, getting the usual scent of her, mixed with her fear, feeling the tightness of her body. "Do you know what I think, _Sethra _?" he asked, on purpose in such a low voice that she was barely able to hear him. The muscles in her jaw tightened – she was obviously readying for an attack. His hand left her body, but he stayed close for a moment. "I think you´re really overestimating your own value, darling." Then he backed off.

He left, taking his time, as if he had just finished with some most unpleasant business.

She flinched when the backdoor slammed. Then she sat there in silence. She felt the pressure on her nerves and body vanish and buried her face in trembling hands for a moment. He was right. She had been too sure about this.

She had threatened to leave him, assuming that there was at least some kind of relationship. As a result, he had just left her.

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At least, it seemed that he took things not as relaxed as he had pretended to do. She flinched for a second time when one of the car´s windows burst into pieces outside.


	20. Interlude again

Deidra - thanks for the great evening and the discussions!

Firefly and Mandya1313 - thanks for sticking around!

This is a short chapter, but the next one´s already done - I hope you won´t be disappointed!

* * *

It was raining the day she left. In fact, weather had been like that for the last three days. In an unsupervised part of her brain, she wished to all stray cats out there that this constantly cold shower would last until the end of their miserable days.

She left early in the morning, equipped with food and water for several days by her aunt. She had met Cameron the day before for a last brawl before returning to David´s house – her body remembered that quite clearly. She was up to meet him more regularly when she was back. He had not that much time left, but as she had no further appointments at the moment, finding a suitable time wouldn´t be too much of a problem.

The plan was easy.

First, she would visit an old friend on her way there– appointment already done.

She would then go back to the house, sort out the stuff she wanted to keep, take the first bunch of it with her home. She would deposit the keys with Donna- and if somebody was interested, she would sell it. She felt quite sure that there wouldn´t be any disturbances this time.

She would then look for an apartment – she couldn´t occupy her aunt´s guestroom forever.

She had also decided to get some help to handle her grief after that. Regarding that point, Victor had chosen a good moment – she didn´t care for any more or less trouble in her mind right now.

* * *

She hadn´t intented to stay more than a day or two, but sorting out David´s stuff took its time, especially as she had no plans to come back here soon.

Though she didn´t really expect anybody to disturb her sleep, she locked the entrance door and bedroom door behind her – though that wouldn´t stop an intruder willing to meet her personally, it would at least cause some noise which would possibly wake her. As there were too many uncertainties in this, she decided to avoid the thought completely if possible.

Fortunately, there were no disturbances.

* * *

The next day, after a short visit to Donna and some breakfast, she decided to spend another day packing and staying for a last night. It made no sense to leave in the afternoon, as she wasn´t willing to drive all night if not necessary.

She had again changed the living room into one big mess the day before. Sighing, she plucked up some courage and started to pack again. Half an hour later, she thought that she´d heard something – or somebody – in the kitchen.

The stereo was at its limit. She turned the music down, then crossed the corridor to the kitchen without further listening.

Well, there was a visitor. But again, things went not as she could have expected.


	21. Recovery

It was him, no doubt. But the state he was in made her flinch. He was covered in blood and dirt, barely able to stand. She crossed the kitchen in an instant, intending to support him. She didn´t reach him in time – he suddenly sagged down to one knee, swaying.

Somehow, she managed to bring him to the guestroom before he finally fainted.

* * *

In fact, there was not much she could do for him.

She took of his boots, cleaned his face from blood and grime – everything else would have to wait. There was not much left of his clothes. Yes, there was his healing ability – but this looked bad. His pulse was slow, but steady. That at least.

He had told her that he was immune against any kind of medicine or drug, so there was no use to give him something against the pain. Besides, he was still unconscious. Whoever had attacked him, it must have been brutal. There were bruises, cuts, surely broken rips- not to speak of possible internal injuries.

She had no idea how many he could take before even his body was too battered to heal up again – or if he could be killed by something like this anyway.

As there was nothing more that she could do for him then, she decided to do something for both of them. She went to the garage, picked up the weapons and loaded them. Whoever had done this, she wasn´t looking forward to meeting him or them without anything at hand to try and survive.

* * *

Morning dawned when he finally woke up. The moment he opened his eyes, his head announced that it was going to explode any minute. He was thirsty like hell. Getting over the first moment of paranoia and shock about his possible whereabouts, he recognized his surroundings and relaxed. His body ached unbearably – a stinging pain to which he couldn´t locate an origin. It was the same feeling after being shot or stabbed or being killed by any other deadly injury – just that death brought release from every pain for other people. He would only faint – and have time to enjoy the feeling of being alive (and badly tortured) for hours, if not days.

He had known that there would be some kind of trap. But he had underestimated them. Their attack had been much more powerful than expected. Well, _he_ had survived. That was the point _they_ had underestimated.

He couldn´t remember much of the way back here. In fact, he hadn´t expected to find _her_ here again. He had intended to settle business first and the girl later on.

There was no use to try getting up – he knew that his body would refuse obedience, at least for some more hours or a day. So he laid back, trying to let the last days and events pass once again in his mind – which made him fall asleep again almost immediately.

* * *

The next time he woke up, it was early afternoon. There was some noise in the kitchen. He tried to stretch cautiously – that made him flinch, so he stopped. Leaning back, he scanned round.

She had really taken care in looking after him. Grateful, he found a bottle of water besides the bed, emptying it in moments. There was a handgun on the nightstand, her watch besides it, blankets and a pillow on the armchair nearby. She had obviously spent the night here.

There were also the remains of his clothes – a problem. Looking further ´round, he realized that she had also taken care of that. On the dresser on the opposite wall were two packs of clothes. He closed his eyes, disbelieving the incredibility of his situation. She had obviously been shopping - her brother´s stuff would never have fitted, as from the pictures, he hadn´t been much taller than her.

The fact that she had had enough time to go to town made him realize that he didn´t know for long he had been unconscious.

There was no use to try to get up – he felt still to battered for that. So, again, he laid back, trying to sort out what had went wrong.

* * *

When she went to check up on him, she was quite surprised to find him awake. She had opened the door cautiously to avoid any noise, almost wincing when she discovered him sitting upright, his back against the high headboard of the old fashioned bed. Her eyes scanned his body immediately. "Hey", she said.

She drew closer but stopped in the middle of the small room, uncertain what to do or say. "You´re alright ?" He only nodded. She was again in jeans and a red sleeveless shirt this time – again, he found that he preferred her in navy green and black.

"I won´t bite you", he stated when she didn´t move. She was barely able to put away that bunch of cynicism. She crossed her arms. "Why ? Did somebody pull out your fangs ?" Her voice was calm. He suppressed a chuckle. He just liked the way she confronted him. "Wanna check ?" he asked. "Oh, you´re better!" she stated. Still, she stayed out of his reach. She gestured to the empty bottle. "Thirsty ?" Too tired to give the tough guy, he simply nodded, throwing her the bottle. She caught it, giving him a disapproving look, wrinkling her nose. "Have a shower, will you ?" She managed to close the door behind her before one of his boots hit the wood.

Some hours later, he finally followed her advise, still feeling screwed. The hot water felt good, but it would still have needed a cute little Asian trio to massage the pain out of his muscles. Sethra had made herself busy around the house whole day, obviously staying away from him on purpose. Well, fine.

When he returned to the guestroom, she had already changed the sheets and blankets. He checked the clothes. The stuff would fit.

Still tired, but too anxious to return to bed, he went to look for her. In fact, she was not hard to find. When he entered the kitchen, there was some noise upstairs which led the way.

He found her in the small storage room alongside the bedroom. When he stopped in the doorframe, she was cursing with all her heart. Already standing on a chair, she was just not tall enough to reach the stuff stored at the top of some wall cupboard. She could barely touch the box with her fingertips and scanned the racks underneath for some additional books to stand on.

"You´re gonna hurt yourself", he told her. She jumped, banging her head against the edge of the cupboard´s door hard enough to make even her feel it. "Thanks, dick", she growled, rubbing her head. "Excuse me ?" he asked indignantly. She turned her head to him. "Fuck – you !"

He couldn´t overcome the temptation. With two steps and one grasp at her waistband, he made her going down backwards into his arms, struggling against him immediately. Sharp pain let him regret hit, but her anger would do for consolation.

"Why don´t you ask me to give you a hand ?" he inquired, ignoring her resistance. "Get your fuckin´ hands off me!" she spat. He tightened his grip, grinning. "What´s the magic word, darlin´ ?" She stopped her hopeless tries to slip out of his grip, grinding her teeth. She cleared her throat. "Get your fuckin´ dirty claws off me – _please_ !"

He shook his head, catching a whiff of her perfume, the scent of her hair, her sweat – and something additional he couldn´t allocate first. "Shut up, bigmouth, will you." Something draw his attention and he loosened his grip. She took her chance, whirling round to face him.

"Turn ´round", he ordered. She gave him a stare. As the floor was covered with stuff and he was blocking the door, there was no way back or out. "Turn around", he repeated impatiently. "Why ?" she asked suspiciously. "Dear Gods!" He grabbed her and turned her so quickly that she had no chance to resist. A single claw ripped the back of her shirt, exposing her shoulder. There was the source of the unknown smell – a fresh tattoo he would barely be able to cover with one hand. Four gaping bloody scratches in dark grey, black and red, drips of tattooed blood trickling down from two of them.

He didn´t need to touch it to feel the original scars under the colour. He had left them the day they had first met.

* * *

"Are you insane ?" he asked, disbelieving. "Who´s asking ?" she returned snotty. He didn´t answer, but drew her closer, forcing her back against his chest. He liked her scent when she was angry. And he wanted to bed her. Now. It took here a moment to notice. She closed her eyes, sighing. "You´re not serious about this, are you ?" she asked. "`bout what ?" came the innocent answer. "You were half-dead half a day ago!" "You´re annoying me." To his surprise, she cocked her head, exposing her neck. When he didn´t move, she sighed. "Still no biting ?" She pretended disappointment. He ignored that.

"I didn´t expect you here", he said instead. As he wasn´t going to release her, she settled against him. "I didn´t expect you here either." His free left hand slipped under her shirt, caressing naked skin. "How long was I gone ?" he asked. "Forty-eight hours. Today´s day 2." These guys had really wrecked him.

She shifted her weight, then touched his forearm, still across her chest, fixing her. She got nervous. "Victor, may I ask you something ?" She felt his muscles tense immediately. Well, she had to know. Then he chuckled darkly. "Asking me questions will allow me to beat you, sweetheart. That´s against your little agreement."

It was her body´s turn to tense, but she didn´t comment. He could imagine that it took her all courage to suppress a snappy answer to that. "I thought you never agreed to that arrangement…." He could tell that she was trying hard to suppress her sarcasm. "Go ahead", he ordered. She still hesitated, closing her fingers around his forearm. "See, I interpreted the battered window as a no", she finally said. His left hand rested warm on her belly now. "If it would have been a no, I would have battered _you_, wouldn´t I ?" She closed her eyes.

"Stop doing this to me", she begged suddenly. The fingers of his right hand followed her collarbone. He denied. "And now ask that damn question." Again, she hated him for this, but other things were more important now.

"Is there a chance that … somebodyfollowed you here ?" "No", came the short reply. "Certainly not." He remembered the gun on the nightstand. "You can sleep without the gun then." She leant her head against his shoulder, only slightly relaxing. "I am not sure about that." "You got me to take to bed with you. More efficient." She smiled, aware that he couldn´t see it. "And why the hell should I take you there ?" she asked. His beard tickled on the sensible skin of her neck. "You´re a bad negotiator, Seth." Adding her name in that way made it a serious threat. He chuckled again, making her feel the deep rumble in his chest. It made her shiver. "Why ?" she asked, boding ill. "You should have included the biting."


	22. Dinner

Sethra felt relaxed. To her own surprise. In some way, she still couldn´t believe all this. But she only needed to take a look in the mirror to know that it _had _happened. She stretched lazily, deciding that there was no way to avoid washing the dishes any longer – there was no single unused plate or fork left.

She had spent too much time in bed with him. As he had completely recovered now, going to bed turned again into some weird kind of adventure trip. In fact, she had never liked tigers too much. Big lazy fellows, watching their women doing all the work. Well, there was not too big of a difference between tigers and humans in _that_ way, but as for him and concerning _certain_ activities, she wouldn´t dare to complain about lacking initiative. Apart from that, this one could distinguish exactly between his wild animalistic features and his so despised human qualities – at least, that was her assumption. She chuckled – if he didn´t stop biting her, people would also possibly start a vampire hunt soon.

It _had_ taken some days for him to recover fully, though he didn´t want to admit that. She had never seen a man eating such quantities in such a short amount of time – and she had seen quite hungry fellows on duty which had eaten quantities as one meal that had made four of five meals for her. Victor caused a constant lack of everything eatable – and beer. For three or four days, she couldn´t remember seeing him without anything to eat, perhaps except the time they spent in bed. Now he was out – doing whatever he did then. He had never been around for more than some hours before, and it had felt odd in a way to have him around 24 hours a day. And after their celebrating the reunion a little bit too enthusiastic, she was glad to have some time on her own.

But again, things didn´t work like she had planned. She had just put on some metal record and started to clean up the mess in the kitchen when a car arrived. Victor hadn´t taken the car, and Donna´s pick-up, even older than her own, caused much more noise. She gazed through the window but couldn´t see anything. Drying her hands on her trousers – he had more or less commanded for Army trousers this morning – she stepped out to the veranda. Seconds later, she regretted it.

* * *

She recognized the car immediately, and alike the driver. He was a good looking guy, dark blond hair, a short but stylish cut, tall but slim built, wearing an expensive looking polo shirt, jeans and sneakers, cool-looking sun glasses. "Sethra !" Obviously pleased to see her, he took the three steps up to the veranda, opening his arms to embrace her.

She crossed her arms in a fending gesture, disturbing his welcome greetings. "Matt." She had to look up to him, blinking as the sun stood high right behind him. As she had avoided an embrace, he put his hands on her shoulders, kissing her cheek before she could draw back. "How are you ?" he asked brightly.

He followed her to the kitchen, taking of the sun glasses, trying to adjust his eyes to the changed light, then looking her over. She was wearing some oversized navy green trousers and a black tank top – as usual, she was barefoot. He had ever despised this ridiculous Army style – it made her looking like a coarse and somehow brawny. Nothing against her dress uniform, but this style made her look like a girl pretending to be a lady thug.

He watched around in the shabby and messed up kitchen with a look full of disdain. She gestured vaguely against the chairs. "What are you doing here ?" she asked, putting some water and coke on the table in front of him, then leaning against the work surface in her back. His eyes returned to her. "I´ve heard that you´ve been at home recently." She nodded. "Yeah. Some appointments at the hospital." "Why didn´t you call ?" he asked in an offended tone.

She suppressed rolling her eyes. Shouldn´t he have asked her about the results of her appointments ? "You told me that you would go to L.A. for some weeks to work when we last talked, remember ?" "But there could had been changes meanwhile", he argued. "But there weren´t", she stated. She had met friends down there which had still contact to both of them. She would have known if he had been in town.

"Your aunt told me that you would visit Jenna for some days", he went on. "Yeah, I did." He nodded. "I know. I´ve talked to her." He lifted her eyebrows in surprise. Fortunately, she could trust her friend - Jenna wouldn´t tell him or anybody things she had told her in confidence. "So what are you doing here ?" she repeated. "I´ve got some work some 100 miles further north", he answered. "And I wanted to see you. I mean, I was quite disappointed that we didn´t meet at home."

She put her hands into her pockets, shrugging. "There´s not much to say, isn´t it." "I am worried about you, Sethra." She narrowed her eyes. He didn't notice as the music distracted him. "I thought it would only have been your colleagues listening to that crap." She finally rolled her eyes, leaning over the surface to grab the remote. "What happened to your shoulder ?" he asked, honestly shocked. "Nothing 'happened' to it."

She turned to him, sighing. "As you can see, I am fine." "You shouldn´t be out here alone, you know that."

She suppressed to ask him why he thought of her living alone her. That guy would only have to open his eyes – there were signs of another guy everywhere. One of Victors jackets hung over the chair besides him, another one over the stairs´ handrail. A pair of big boots stood on the last step, loads of mud on it proving recent use. Trousers definitely too big to be hers dried in front of the house in the sun. Well, maybe he thought of that as David´s stuff, but she suspected that he just hadn´t noticed. That guy had lived in his own little world for years.

"I think we´ve talked about that too often now." "What if there´s a seizure ?" he confronted here. "Matt, we´ve been through this before! There were seizures back at home when you had went to business trips, too. You know that I don´t faint immediately."

She asked herself why she held back with her feelings. She realized that if it had been Victor tryin´ to lecture her, she would already been screaming bloody murder for minutes. "Look at you. You´ve lost so much weight!" She gave him a cold stare. "Isn´t that what you ever were so keen on ?" she asked aggressively, feeling childish immediately. "You know that this is not true!" She hissed.

"This is pointless, Matt, just pointless." He became more serious. "Darling, I don´t want … " "I am not your darling!" she interrupted short tempered. He looked somehow confused. "Sethra, I am just really worried!" "There is no need!" she insisted. She didn´t needed or wanted that.

"I had some problems to find the way to David´s house", he stated in a peculiar tone. "I had to ask in town." She clenched her teeth unwillingly. "I was told…well…" He cleared his throat. "I was told there, I mean, somebody mentioned that you are with some guy."

She crossed her arms, straightening her shoulders. As Donna would never have told him, she got the suspicion that he had met her lovesick brother – and that birdbrained redneck would have given him the full story willingly. "In case you didn´t notice", she heard herself telling him, "we parted months ago." Her own voice sounded frosty in her ears. "Is it true ?" he asked, sounding quite simple-minded for once.

Sethra felt that she would soon reach the point to which she had jumped to within seconds when he had tried to call her all the times during the last months. She got really pissed. Still, there was the same old obstruction to shout at him. She just didn´t want to shout it at him, but his indifference against such a lot of obvious things drove her mad.

She made some steps towards him, pausing in the sunlight falling through the still open door. She was practically covered in scars, and both lovebites and others. "See, I don´t know how to…", she started, struggling to find the right words. "They say he´s a freak", he interrupted here. That was the last straw.

"So what ?" she asked in a tone so dark that she was surprised herself. There it was, right under the surface – all the backed up rage. She hated him for patronizing her, treating her like an unreasonable child, as if she was too naïve to recognize a possible danger. She clenched a fist. "Sethra, you should…."

"Shut your fuckin´ mouth, will you!" she roared, switching into commando tone at once. He flinched. "This is none, none of your business! I don´t need your advise, Matthew – open your eyes, I am a grown-up !" "You won´t tell me you started some affair with some of these … creatures." The freak he was talking about so disparagingly would kill and skin him only for that phrase. Her self-control failed.

"I am so sick of you!" she shouted. "You´re so full of prejudices and self-content, I can´t believe that!" He got up to his feet, astonished of her outbreak. "Look at you, Sethra, this isn´t you! You need help to ..." "Open your eyes, you asshole, just open them this one single time!" He watched her, stunned. "This is exactly who I am, it´s just you never realized! I am not your little high school girl any more! I don´t need you organizing my life! I _commanded _people, Matt! I was responsible for them, so I am able to handle my own life!"

"That´s over, Sethra."

For the first time in her life, she was willing to beat somebody up unscrupulously and for her own pleasure. Some grinning devil in her mind told her that it would be easy. He had always been all talk, but no action. "You can´t do that any longer." She felt the muscles in her shoulders twitch and got the impression that her whole body was shaking in hardly suppressed fury.

For once, he noticed, taking a step backwards.

"You´re ill. You won´t be able to return to duty." "I know that!" Her voice, coarse and unemotional, overpowered his effortlessly.

"We could still marry, you know." That stunned her for moments. In fact, it took her some seconds to realize that he had really proposed that. "What are you telling me ?" she asked. "That you´ll take care of me ? I am not fatally ill!" Her voice flipped over for a moment.

"You did never tell anybody what really had happened to me, did you ?" she shouted in rage. "You were ashamed of that! That wouldn´t have fitted in, huh ? I won´t just turn into a loving housewife accompanying you to cocktail parties!" The last words she had yelled. "What kind of future do you have here ?" he asked bluntly.

She felt tears rise, feeling helpless and freaking about this unbearable indifference of his at the same time. She crossed her arms. "I´d rather die out here working my ass off for living than getting bought by you! I am not a whore!" Her voice went forcefully out of control. "So you´ll prefer to live with some unpredictable freak and…"

"Yeah, and maybe I´ll get a bunch of freaky little mutant children, too! This is _my_ life! This is so ridiculous!" His face turned red. She felt herself shivering. "Leave !" she commanded, struggling for a rest of self control and dignity.

"I drove hours to come here", he answered indignantly.

She felt as if her body was under somebody else´s control, ready to punch. She might have done that, but then a voice interfered.

"Oh. We got a visitor."

At once, she felt the sudden urge to laugh hysterically. Victors massive outline filled the doorframe, blocking out the light for a moment. She managed at least to reduce her voice to a normal level. "Matt was just leaving." "Really ?" He gave the staring guy a short look, crossing the kitchen. He took his jacket off, revealing strong muscled naked upper arms. "So aren´t you going to introduce us ?" he asked. His innocent and kindly tone made her hair stand on end.

He caught her by surprise when he bent down to kiss her. "How was your day, babe ?" he asked casually. One clawed hand rested on her belly for a moment, like by coincidence. Distraught, she realized that his claws were at their full length. "As I said, Matt was leaving." "A pity." She couldn´t believe that this was happening.

"Haven´t you invited him for dinner ?" He turned to Matt, giving him a broad smile, fully exposing his canines. Then he sat down on one step of the stairs, starting to untie his boots, pretending not to notice the other one´s unbelieving stare. She couldn´t decide if to laugh or to cry. When Victor looked up again, the expression on his face had changed in such a menacing way that she felt a shiver running down her spine. Matthew wasn´t able to say a single word. "Just go", Sethra whispered.

The first time in his life, he followed her order immediately.

Sethra felt unable to move, even when the sound of the engine had faded. She rubbed her face for a moment, hands trembling. He gave her an odd look.

"So what the hell was that about ?" She just gave him a helpless look, wondering the same. "I didn´t know you´d be around", she said lamely. "You´re kiddin´ ? I´d been able to hear you shout at that prick for miles." Instantly, she blushed. Still, the whole scene seemed completely unreal to her.


	23. Bathroom truths

Finally, she turned to him. "Babe ?" she asked in disbelieve.

He passed her, again heading for the fridge. "Don´t get smug about that", he placated, snatching a cold beer from the fridge. She noticed that his claws had regained their normal abnormal size. "You haven´t been worried about me, have you ?" she teased. "No reason for that as long as you´re still shouting at somebody."

He checked her out with a fierce stare. "Have a shower", he ordered. She lifted her eyebrows. "I´ve got one two hours ago." He breathed heavily, putting the bottle down carefully on the surface in front of him. "Don´t tax my patience", he warned. She wasn´t listening, still distraught by the scene she had just witnessed. "I don´t get that you tried to stare Cameron to death for just having a workout with me, just to give my ex that polite little show", she mused.

Well, she had obviously missed his point. The bottle hit the wall only inches besides of her, sending bits of broken glass and beer all over her and the floor. An instance later, she felt smashed against the wall, too. Confused, surprised and in agony, she only gasped.

He dragged her across the corridor, forcing her under the shower, turning cold water on. She squealed, struggling against his grip at her throat. The water drenched her clothes in seconds, making her tremble. "Are you listening ?" he asked. She panted for air. "Are you fuckin´ listening to me ?" he roared. She somehow managed to nod.

"Fine", he mocked, his voice full of disdain. "Then this is _my_ deal! If this fellow ever touches you again, he´s dead. If I´ll ever smell him again on you, you´ll need to get your sullen little face tattooed next time! You got that ?" She nodded again.

Finally, he released her, shoving her head hard to the side. "And regarding your nice habit of ignoring my orders – don´t think that beating you up ´s the only idea I´d have to make you learn doing otherwise!"

She gave him only a short look, water trickling down her face and body. Still, he had seen it. Defiance. Resistance. He suppressed a chuckle. She would never admit, but today, he had already caught two glimpses at the little animal inside _her_. Probably a cute feminine version, but nonetheless, it was there.

"What ?" he asked, challenging, curious to see if she would still have the guts to confront him. She reached behind her to turn off the water. "I haven´t chased one patronizing bastard off to replace him through another one!" she told him through gritted teeth, trembling violently.

He stepped back, crossing his arms in front of him. "Go on", he encouraged her, his expression impossible to read. "_I_ left _him_, blockhead! And I – don't – take – orders!" "Wanna bet ?" he asked huskily. "What´s wrong with your sick mind that you´re not able to trust me ?" she asked back in the same low tone. "Don´t push it too far." "Don't give me that", she whispered.

She stepped out of the shower, not caring for the water still trickling down from her clothes. "I could…" "I know !" she interrupted, her voice low but determined. "I am quite aware of what you _could_ do every single moment! I only wonder why you don´t get that I don´t need to be threatened permanently to respect you !" "Don´t talk to me about respect!" he spat. "Seems hopeless", she agreed, trying to reach out for something to dry her up. He blocked her way. "I could kill you right here and now, just for annoying me", he stated. She nodded, looking up to him, slightly smiling. "Yeah. But if you ever had really wanted to do that, you would have done it long before."


	24. Contradictions

**Another chapter done! I´ll have to admit, this guy gives me sometimes bad trouble to think up the right things to go on with :-) !!!**

* * *

After a long and hot shower, she felt better. Well, drained somehow – but better. When she had finished at the bathroom, drying her hair with a towel on the way out, she realized that he had left. Well, she had expected that. She got somehow used to his reactions. If she would ever tell him that Mr. Unpredictable was in fact quite predictable in some ways, he might really tear her apart. She sighed, repeatedly. It didn´t matter which kind of guy one got involved with – they would again and again raise problems a woman would never see or understand. Probably problems which didn´t really exist!

She dressed casually, preparing for an hour or two of reading before going to bed. She picked one of David´s books, some kind of science fiction thriller. It was one of the books she could read again and again, just to relax and at some point maybe fade over to sleep, settling down on the couch with it.

Some time later, she realized that she had managed only half a page within half an hour, thoughts still whirling round in her mind.

She had left with the belief that this was finally over. In fact, there she was, again right in the middle of this big mess, caused by an emotional unstable killer mutant. He was moody, he was fuckin´ awesome. In fact, she had to realize that she didn't doubt that he had surely killed and maybe raped. Still, there was the unshakable conviction that he wouldn´t kill her. A deadly conviction, if she was wrong. Still, the last time she had doubted her conviction, after proposing that deal to him and watch him leave, she also had been right to trust her gut instincts – though things had looked different at first.

Sighing, she closed the book, shifting into a more comfortable position to rest. There was simply no denying the fact. He _was_ a bastard. He _had_ hurt and scarred her. But he had also saved here, several times, when there had been no advantage for him out of that. And what made things worse – she _had_ a fuckin´ crush on him.

* * *

For months, it had been kind of a mystery to him what this stubborn female had around her that had attracted him.

Remembering their first meeting, he had been surprised and well entertained by her courage. He liked to remember her, standing in the doorframe, aiming at him with that old shotgun, shoutin´ commandos.

From day one, she had called him names. Had screamed bloody murder at him from time to time. He had never accepted that from anyone before – especially not from women. He presumed that accepting that from her was somehow connected with his military past. He had been used to live with guys who were just not able to create a sentence without using at least three cusswords and a curse. Though he hadn´t lived that way for years, her bad language, combined with her Army clothes, had somehow fitted in for him.

His general view concerning women joining the Army hadn´t changed since they met. Still, for her, that kind of career fitted. She was just not girlish enough to do some cute job as a nursery teacher or librarian. And she surely had some talent for fighting. Still, she didn´t lack sufficient female attributes. He guessed that her forms were usually somehow fuller than they were now, and as she hadn´t been doing a regular workout during the last months, she would have lost muscle, too. Especially muscles were something he had never searched for on a woman. Too masculine. But he could imagine easily that she wouldn´t have looked like an amazon before – more muscles would surely only make her look somehow chubby, as she wasn´t very tall. A thought he liked.

God knows, she was sometimes annoyingly stubborn. But when she was not just freakin´ out over something, she handled him in an irritating quiet way. It didn´t seem to bother her too much that she didn´t know any details about him or that there might be not that much of conversation, as long as there was company. He liked that fact in particular. And he realized that her stubbornness was maybe the only reason she hadn´t really tried to leave him so far.

Well, she also caused trouble, coming up with accusations from time to time he just couldn´t bear. Accusations nobody had made towards him for decades. He hadn´t intended to slap her weeks ago when she had screamed at him of not being able to manage emotional distress. She had no idea how much he had achieved on especially that field over the last 20 years. She had just missed that there had been more urgent things to get a hold of than simple outbursts of rage. Controlling his tendencies to hunt and especially kill had been the main goal. Nevertheless and to his anger, beating her had just proved her point. Actually, she should have been happy to have survived that little argument. Well, she was probably aware of that.

The fact that he had hurt and beat her contrasted some other point that gave him constant trouble. He had no idea what that was caused by, but somehow, he felt protective about her. She surely was the independent type. Regarding the last few months, she had been in trouble more than one time and presumably, maybe except for that seizure, she might have been able to handle these situations on her own. Still, he had felt somehow obliged to look after her. _This_ contradiction in his actions reminded him strongly of another relationship he would have preferred to be not reminded of. The only other person he could remember feeling that kind of protective around, though he himself had caused several physical and mental injuries to it, had been his younger brother.


	25. Unpredictable

Finally, she went to bed, still puzzled.

He didn´t show up the next day – well, that had been to be expected, too.

A stinging pain woke her early the following morning. Dazed, she reached out to switch on the light but a hand grabbed her wrist. She reached with her free hand for her shoulder, touching the wound there. When he released her wrist, she rammed her elbow backwards into his rips. For once, that took him by surprise, but only caused a really dark chuckle. "Fighting mode again ?" he asked. Still not completely back to consciousness and angry, she struggled against the blanket to be able to sit up. A strong arm interrupted her. It took her some moments to relax. She hated being wakened like this. He felt her heartbeat getting slower again. His hand run through her hair.

"You could simply have woken me up", she said. "How boring." She sighed. "Yeah. Not bloody enough!" she mocked, feeling his fingers and claws drawing a line downwards over the back of her neck and down her spine. He put one arm around her hips, pulling her closer. A large hand rested warm under the lower hem of her shirt. "Did you had a look at the clock ?" she asked. They usually made love late in the evening, fading to sleep afterwards. She was supposed to wake up alone next morning, never noticing when he left. "I figured things got a little bit too predictable lately", came the dark and amused answer. "Too late for that, guy!" "You´re bloody bad tempered, you know", he stated. "Ha! Look who´s talking!" She tried to turn to him, but he didn´t allow her to. "In case you never noticed – you´ve made a fuckin´ habit of being bad-tempered!" She felt his hand roaming under her shirt and tried to stop him. "Whatever you´re up to – forget about it." He chuckled. "Are you trying to tell me no ?" She yawned. "Yeah. I don´t wanna be raped that early in the morning", she answered sleepily. Another chuckle followed.

Unperturbed, he straightened his grip and turned to his back, her body sprawled over his, her back against his chest. She realized that she was completely at his mercy now – and not very comfortable. Clawed hands wandered over her body, one under her shirt, the other one ripping her panties.

She sighed, somehow unwillingly noticing that her body had decided to want this – not asking her mind for permission first. She moaned when he explored more sensible regions. "Still don't want me ?" he asked some moments later. "No." That sounded half-hearted. "Somebody´s lying", he stated airily. "Stop", she muttered, unable to do anything to defend herself.

He brought her on her back easily, fixing her with his body and weight, growling. He kissed her, aggressive at first, becoming softer to her surprise. He forced her chin to the right, exposing the tender side of her throat. She realized that he knew how she feared him to bite her there. The sheer imagination send shivers through her body. He only used it as a distraction – she should have known. She gasped when she felt him thrusting into her, still not daring to turn her head to face him.

He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling her hands on his shoulders, her nails digging in his muscles. He would make her pay. To boost the enjoyment, he told her. "What for ?" she asked breathless when she finally dared to turn her head to watch him. "Telling you the truth ?" He had intended to answer her for about telling him no. This was a much better reason. "You shouldn´t have reminded me on that" he told her instead, threatening. She closed her eyes. There wouldn´t have been a way to avoid this anyway.

He was not patiently enough to make her come that time, but as that happened rarely anyway – and as it caused regularly some really bad damage – she didn´t bother. He turned again, taking her with him to rest above him. She always felt quite small when he did that. She settled in, her head resting against his chest.

She had almost faded to sleep when some sound brought her back. "Don't tell me that was your stomach." He laughed lowly. "Does that mean you´re going to stay for breakfast ?" she asked. "Just sleep", he ordered. His lazy tone told her yes. Fading to sleep again, she wondered if these were the two things which would always bring him back to her – sex and food.


	26. Morning

It was around 7 when she woke up again and got up, heading for the bathroom. He realized that he was wearing his shirt when she came back.

She slipped under the coverlet, nestling up against his body. He growled, tugging at the shirt. "Get that off." She sighed, following that order. When she had finished, he spread the blankets over her bare shoulders. She placed a kiss upon his chest.

"Have you heard again from your boyfriend ?" The question startled her. "Ex friend!" she corrected. "And no." She smiled after another moment. "He didn´t even try to call me." His fingers massaged her neck softly. "Good." The satisfaction ringing through his voice made her laugh.

"You´re not serious about that guy, are you ?" he asked, settling down. She sniffed at that. "Seems that I don´t have the right touch with men." He ignored that. "I hope you didn´t lose your maidenhood to that wimp." That made here blush badly. "Excuse me ?" He stretched, relaxing again afterwards, observing her lazily. He could almost see thoughts whirling behind her forehead.

"What ?" he asked. She frowned at him. "You know, I am not sure if I would have wanted to lose it to _you_." He chuckled. "You might have been surprised." She laughed. „Yeah – badly!" She considered that thought for a moment. Besides the permanent trauma she would have ended up with, she would at least remember _some_ feeling from that nowadays.

"I expected you to slash _him_ immediately after your nice little act in the showers with Cameron. At least, there would have been some reason here." She shook her head, still disbelieving. "I mean, what did you do!" In fact, she had _loved_ it, watching him, all flexing muscles, outrivaling Matthew just through his mere appearance. She realized that she just had loved to see him do what she had him accused of months before. She knew only too good how it felt to get stared down and frightened to death by him. And she had to admit that she had enjoyed to watch her former boyfriend almost wetting his pants.

"Didn´t like it ?" She only chuckled, then grew serious again. Why wasn´t there any jealousy around this guy, with whom she had actually lived for years. "So how many years did you waste on this guy ?" he asked. "Curious today ?" He didn´t answer. "Actually, around ten." His fingers stopped moving for a moment. She smiled privately. "Yeah. I wonder myself how that worked." She shifted her weight, trying to reach a more comfortable position. "I think we should have become a couple at high school already, but actually, it happened after that."

He closed his eyes, concentrating on the sound of her voice. He pictured the guy for a moment, compared him to her. Her usually dishevelled hair, the casual clothes. It was obvious that the two of them had been a weird combination – like some role reversal. "And why did you leave him ?" His constantly asking still surprised her.

She lifted her eyebrows. "You listened in!" He growled. "I already told you that I could hear you shouting for miles." She imagined him for a moment, relaxing on the veranda, enjoying the show while she screamed bloody murder at Matthew. "Why didn´t you interfere earlier ?"

He chuckled. "Let´s say I enjoyed listening to you shouting at someone else for once. Besides that, I interfered before you hit him, didn´t I ?" She felt herself blush slightly. "That wouldn´t have happened." He laughed. "You´re sure ?" He had never smelled her angrier before. In fact, every sane guy would have realized that he had overdone. He had felt the turmoil in her when he had touched her – he knew that feeling, too. Still, some part of him had quite liked that.

"I let some guy fuck me at work." He opened his eyes. "What ?" She caressed his chest with one hand. "You asked why I left. I had sex with a colleague." "You´re pretending." She smiled. "Oh, actually I am not!" She closed her eyes for a moment, remembering the delicate scene. Well, things hadn´t been _that_ delicate – which was exactly what had made it that good for her.

She laughed, lowly, a content sound. "Miss Principle breakin ´the rules ?" he teased. She sighed. "O yes. And believe me, I enjoyed it!" He immediately felt a sting of jealousy – fully aware of how ridiculous that was. "Misleading some youngster ?" he mused. Laughter again. "No! But you will like that – it happened at the showers – men´s changing room." "You let some guy fuck you on duty ?" He had always known that female soldiers only brought trouble. "Oh, to be precise, at that time, we we´re already officially of duty." And, as she may have been nuts at that time, but not completely insane, she had made sure that nobody would catch them.

"So you told your wimp of a boyfriend that you´re fucking someone else and he still wants to marry you ?" She flinched. "You´re crazy ?" "Oh." He grinned. "You didn´t tell him, didn´t you?" She blushed – deeply, this time. "I couldn´t. Besides, that was two days before my little accident happened." "And you haven´t told him afterwards ?" She shook her head. "No. No need for that."

He put one arm behind his head to get a better look at her, catching up. "Did I got you right - you stayed for a decade with a guy you never felt fucking you ?" She looked offended and embarrassed at the same time. "You´re hopeless", he commented.

"Not everybody´s a born rapist", she snapped. "Careful, darling. I might take that personally.

She took a deep breath. "What about you, Mr. Creed ?" she asekd, out of an impulse.


	27. Bedroom truths

This time, I want to note down the credits for all the music it needed to write this down!

So the "musical credits" go to :

**First** - and to my own surprise - to Katie Melua for "Halfway up the Hindukush" – describing quite good how Sethra feels about Victor

**Second** - to Katie Melua – for "Piece by Piece", when he makes her sad

**Third **- to Katie Melua – for "Nine million bicycles", when he makes her happy

**Fourth** - to Korn for the whole "Take a look in the mirror"-record – just the right thing if you wanna get an impression of Sethra´s anger

**Fifth** - to Moonspell – for "Opium", "Ruin and Misery" and "Raven Claws" – for a deep dark voice and great double bass sound

**Sixth **- to Metallica – for "Ain´t my bitch", "2x4" and "Until it sleeps" from the "Load"- album, the last title fitting as for the frustrated feeling about the beast inside

**Seventh** and finally - to Rage – "Beginning of the end" – the title quite fitting for their whole affair ;-)

As I am in general more into heavy stuff, I am not quite sure how the Katie Melua thing happened – but it fitted in a way I just couldn´t ignore ;-)

**Furthermore, special thanks to my loyal reviewers – thanks for sticking ´round !**

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His muscles tightened immediately. "Have you never picked the wrong woman ?" she asked. "Couldn't you figure a more intimate question to ask ?" His return surprised her. She gave him a weird look. "You just asked me to whom I´ve lost my maidenhood! And you already know my ex friend!" She sighed. "As well as some of my friends, somehow what´s left from my family and the fuckin´ story of my life!" He chuckled. "And your second name", he added. To his delight, she blushed. "Don´t like it – Tabitha ?" She hated how he emphasized it. "That´s my first", she corrected, sounding grim.

"Say it", he ordered. She sighed. "It´s Tabitha Setherina Daria Ethans. God, mom was embarrassing sometimes!" She hit his chest with a weak blow. "You snooped!" she accused him. He didn´t care. "When did your mother die ?" he asked. "When I was eight." She draw closer to him. "Dad when I was fourteen. David came back from abroad then." She sighed. He had come back to take care of her, giving up the life he had led before that. "Did you have siblings ?" she asked.

"Are we curious today ?" he asked. "I never stop being", she told him. "And why is it that you´ve never asked before ?" She smiled. "Cause_ I_ am polite." He laughed. "Oh yes – how could I dare !" They rested in silence for a moment. "One brother", he then told her. She looked up, surprised that he had actually answered her. Then she smiled. "Oh, I _see_! You´re the older one – I´d bet!" She moved to get face to face with him, gently kissing him, her lips barely touching his. "Are you ?" she then asked. He gave her a dark look. "Do you think you´ll get me talking this way ?" he asked fiercely. "Are you ?" she repeated, insisting. He cupped one large hand around the back of her head, kissing her more demandingly until she gave a soft moan.

"I am the older one", he told her then. She grinned. "I _knew_!" Oddly enough, he sometimes reminded her of David. He had never tried to patronize her as Matthew had always tried to – it was rather some kind of resigned but still amused mild disapproval regarding the younger one´s actions or attitudes – and protective instinct! Well, David had actually been almost old enough to be her father. "O dear!" she said. "What ?" "Two of your kind around – quite a challenge for a mother!" She chuckled. "I would have messed up!" He didn´t comment.

"Will you tell me how old you are ?" she then asked, getting more serious. "Is that important ?" She laughed tenderly. "No, it is not." Another laugh. "I know you´re too old for me anyway!" She kissed the corner of his mouth, his beard tickling on her face. "How old are you, big man ? Fifty ?" He chuckled. "If that thought already shocks you, you should stop asking." "Can you be killed ?" she continued playfully. "How am I supposed to stop you chattering ?" he asked. She knew he hadn´t enunciated the whole sentence, leaving "_if I am not allowed to beat you_" out. "Threatening mode again ?" she teased.

She was really getting perky. His hand slipped down her neck, over her collarbone and brest, shoving the coverlet aside in the process. She grabbed it protectively. He clicked his tongue, grabbing her hand and forcing finger after finger from the hem of the coverlet. "Tell me what this is about", he demanded. "What is what about ?" She acted the fool. "Why won´t you let me look at you ?" he asked. She avoided his gaze. Her jaw tightened. "Don´t be ridiculous." That sounded quite forced. "Why ?" he insisted.

He felt her mood change immediately. She turned her back on him. He had hit a nerve. He imprisoned her in a tight embrace, not allowing her to bring more space between them. "Tell me", he whispered. "`Cause…" She hissed, hesitating. "`Cause what ?" She felt herself blush. Again. She gritted her teeth, feeling suddenly worn out. "Let me guess", he said. "That guy complained about your body." Idiot. He could have been glad that a girl like her – besides one with her body, one with brains – had ever fallen for him. "I don´t get it", he stated. "He patronized you, he made you feel substandard, he wasn´t able to make you feel him fuck you – why the hell did you stay ?"

She sat up, covering herself with the blanket. "Would you just shut up ?" she snapped. "You´re not really encouraging me right now, you know!" He wanted to grab her to make her lay down again, but she caught his wrist. "Don´t!" He could watch her struggle inside. Leaving the bed now meant to get fully exposed to his gaze. Staying meant that she couldn´t avoid him. "Bad dilemma, huh ?" he muttered, forcing her back against his chest again. She took a deep breath. "You´re a bastard." "Silly prone! I told you that I see in the dark!" "Bad enough", she muttered. "It´s the same thing as with your scent – you may tell me different, but I will always know if you´re lying or scared or angry, or aroused or bleeding." She coughed slightly. "Would you stop embarrassing me now!" He grinned. "Does somebody doesn´t like listening to the facts ?" She remained silent for a while.

Finally, she relaxed, still feeling abashed. "What are you telling me ?" she asked. "That we´re quite alike concerning that matter ?"


	28. Bloodshed

When she was back from shopping a few days later in the afternoon, she found that he was already there. She could hear water flowing at the bathroom. She put her bags down. With a short glance towards the packed car, she decided to look after something else first. She needed a shower, too, and as he always complained about her don´t letting him see her without clothes… Spontaneously, she kicked her shoes from her feet and headed to the open bathroom door.

She stopped in the doorframe, stunned.

One clawed hand rested against the tiled wall of the shower. Water trickled down his neck, over his muscular neck and broad shoulders, in runlets down his back and chest. She tried hard not to gasp – she just loved the sight. That guy would never look uncool or even ridiculous – not even while takin´ a shower. She felt like melting right where she stood.

"Like the view ?" he finally asked, not even turning his head to watch her. She smiled. "God, yes !" she answered. He cocked his head. "You smell sweaty, sunshine." She couldn´t other than grin. Somebody had the same intentions. She chuckled – nicely girlish – and slipped out of her jeans. "Did I ever tell you that I like your ass ?" she asked. He gave her the darkest look she had seen on his face for a long time. "Get _your_ ass here before I come and take you, bitch." She had lost her socks and shirt already. "I´ll give a fuckin´shit about your orders, darling." "You got three fuckin´ seconds!" Feeling jaunty, she stuck her tongue out at him. "Or what ?" she asked.

She fled. Slightly reminded on her first escape from him, when she made it across the corridor and to the stairs. Hearing him following behind her gave her a push of arousal – but also caused, as she noticed, a slight wave of panic. She had reached the upper end of the stairs when she heard him laugh behind her – close!

Then, the upper part of her body half turned to watch out for him, she stumbled over something she hadn´t managed to clean away. Struggling for balance, she crashed into the commode besides her, bringing some porcelain down with her, squealing when she hit the floor face forward in a shower of cullet. He´d been directly on her heels, barely managing not to stumble over her. "You´re okay ?" he asked, getting down to one knee to help her up.

Turning to her side, she panted, watching him. But his eyes didn´t catch hers. She finally followed his gaze, immediately shocked. Blood streamed down her forearm. "Shit", she hissed, feeling somehow sick, trying to inspect the damage. Then she realized the silence.

Her shock grew as soon as she glimpsed his face. The expression there, more a grimace, let her forget about the blood for a moment. She tried to back off instinctively, but he grabbed her wrists. "Don´t !" she cried, highly aware of the panic in her voice. Something was badly wrong. "Victor ", she whispered.

There he was. Her arousal watching him moments earlier. The teasing. The mock hunt up the few stairs.

The aroma of her blood hit him without warning. Mixed with her excitement and arousal, her adrenaline, it intoxicated him. Seconds later, fear was added. "Let me go", she whispered, horror-stricken. She tried to back off again, but his grip was hard. His upper lip went up, exposing fangs. She gasped. This was no teasing or pretending. This was serious. "Let me go!" she cried, suddenly trying to get up.

His slap took her completely by surprise and made her head jerk aside. He had only hit her with the back of his hand to silence her – she knew that a real blow would have sent her into unconsciousness immediately. Still, one half of her face burned badly. "Shut up!" he hissed, reaching for her. "No!" she yelled, fighting him.

The elbow of her injured arm hit his jaw unexpectedly. His reaction to that brought her down to the floor again. Claws left bloody traces on her hips when he turned her to her belly, ripping the few of clothes that were left on her body. She cried out, this time in pain, as more porcelain cut into her skin. She could see clearly where this was leading – he would rape her here and now and in this kind of state, he would not pretend. She fought harder, felt muscles clench. Her fear amplified her strength. Her body moved without thinking.

She couldn't get free but avoided that he could get a firm grip on her. She cried out his name, trying hard to hit any sensitive point to bring him back to himself, out of this delusion. Well, there was no way. His pure mass brought her down in the end, made her unable to move. The bleeding arm bent backwards to her back in a painfully unnatural angle, the other blocked by her own and his bodyweight, legs pinned down by his knee, face down, she gasped. One clawed hand fixed her head against the floor. "Leave – me!" she forced out. The next seconds stretched to eternity.

Then he left. Without a word or sound. She felt the pressure on her body vanish – that was all.

She was for minutes unable to move. When she finally managed, she stayed where she had fallen, back against the wall, shaking for minutes. She felt tears running, but the shock was too fresh to really comprehend what had just happened.

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Later on, she called Donna to bring her to a doctor. She didn´t ask much, but picked her up only fifteen minutes later. She gasped when she saw her.

Luckily, the friend didn´t ask a lot of questions, even then. "It was an accident", Sethra finally stated. Donna didn´t took her eyes from the road. "You know, this is what they all say", she only commented. Sethra sighed. "If it hadn´t been an accident, Donna, there would be no more need for a doctor", she answered.


	29. Compensation

She was deeply asleep. Peacefully. One naked leg was entangled in the folds of her blanket, her body turned to one side. The white bandage around her forearm glowed brightly, standing out from the darker colours of the blanket and her shirt. He realized that she was actually wearing one of his. He breathed heavily. Every girl with the slightest rest of sense would have run. Months ago.

This one obviously wouldn´t.

He stood there for minutes. Watching her. Still unsure what to do. He had been watching her constantly during the last days. Not the day he had freaked out, but the whole three days after that. The bruises which had covered part of her face already faded. She hadn't looked too disturbed, actually. The day before, she had been out in the woods, not too far away from the house, roaming, sitting ´round, relaxing.

He had followed. As unsure what to do as he was now. Suddenly, he hated her for sleeping that peacefully, letting him stand around feeling like an idiot. He didn´t miss the fine irony there. More than one and a half century experience of life – and he had still no idea how to handle this.

He had been caught off his guard. Not by her, but by his own feral insides. Still, he blamed her. Knowing that it was nonsense to do so.

He had smelled her blood before. When he had found her there on the veranda, unconscious. When she had cut her while preparing dinner. At least, when it was _that _time of the month. Still, this hadn't been the same. The combination of everything, the situation, the teasing, the hunting thing – the mere view of this amount of blood, trickling over her skin. He had seen it a thousand times, in much worse scenarios. It had always affected him worse in combination with women. It had too often led to further bloodshed.

Well, he had managed to stop.

Just not exactly in time.

He had turned the whole incident for days in his mind. Arguing.

Something inside him told him that he should end this here and now. He didn´t need to kill her. She knew barely more than his name. He could just leave and forget about it.

Still, there she was. He closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating on her scent.

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Sethra couldn´t tell what exactly had wakened her. It was dark around - she guessed that it was about the middle of the night. She reached out for the clock to check. Then she realized that something was wrong.

That something constrained her movements somehow. It was quite massive. And warm.

She reclined into the warmth, closing her eyes. Catching a whiff of his scent, she tried to imagine how much more multifarious he experienced hers. Sleepy, she decided that she was content that her senses told her that he was there at all – though they hadn't told her when he had arrived. He didn't move. Still, she was sure that he was wide awake.

The massive something itself wondered if she had been too bleary to realize that he was there. She hadn´t flinched. She hadn´t gasped. Her pulse hadn´t quickened. Actually, _he_ almost flinched when a small hand touched his, resting on her belly. Soft fingertips slid between his fingers. She breathed heavily.

He was brave for a while, still considering. But finally, he gave up, following the instructions his instincts gave him

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This time she realized the reason for wakening. Claws, teasing. Following the outline of her jaw. Her collarbone. Her hips. Still, he wouldn´t speak. She didn´t bother, enjoying the moment. Then she realized something else. She suppressed the urge to laugh.

The cat was obviously hungry again, though if not for food. For a moment, she entertained the weird idea that in this special case, having a second girl around might have been reasonable. After months with him, she could still count their shared nights without sex at one hand – including the two times she had been indisposed as a consequence of her seizures and the two times he had been indisposed after that brawl he had gotten in. For the fifth night, she had been drunk and weepy then. After wondering for a while why that would have prevented him from just taking her, she had guessed that he had maybe been scared of making her sick. The thought still amused her.

Back to here and now, the taking was already in progress. Slowly, yes. But steadily. She gasped when he thrust into her, cursing her body for letting her miss the preparations for that every time. Still laying on her side, her back against his chest and belly, this was a delicate high-wire act. There was no way to do this the rough way- making her feel it thereby. To her disapproval, she herself had no idea how much effort it at least took to make her perceive things.

After some moments, she had to realize that _he_ knew.

He contentedly asserted that he could control it – so far. For her, the concept of sweet torture made some sense for the first time. Waves of heat washed over her. She felt him bite her – God, she even _liked_ that by now. Then she reached the point where _sweet_ torture was not longer enough.

She slipped out of his grip easily. It took him by surprise, parting them. It made him growl. She wanted him to take her hard. Make her moan. Cry out ? He didn´t follow her silent requests first, and she cursed herself for not being able to just name things. She finally moaned, but out of frustration. She turned to him, on her knees at his side, one hand resting on his chest.

"Will you bastard finally carry out your goddamn duty or what ?" she hissed. He laughed in response. A low, deep, louring and amused sound. "I won´t beg", she promised. "Wanna bet ?" he whispered. Her hands reached out for his face and, having found their aim, she bent forward to kiss him, long and deeply. "Don´t make me", she muttered – already pleading.

He laughed again. Maybe not this time. He still had to make amends for something. She sprawled besides him, belly down. "Just bring this to an end", she commanded, need and impatience ringing through her tone. He reached out for her, pulling her over himself, staring at her in disbelief in the dark.

This crazy thing was willing to perform what he had intended four days earlier – with the fine difference that he would have done it without her permission then, probably followed by things quite worse. Though he had done this uncounted times, he didn´t feel like that right now. Accepting, she slid over him, shortly searching for the right position to let him find his way back into her. When he had succeeded, she bent forward, settling in against his chest, her mind watching helplessly while her unnerving late blooming synapses prepared for her body to explode.

Something told her that this wakening had been the nearest thing to an apologize she would ever get.


	30. Concrete walls

**I hope you´ll like the following chapter, as it starts with a little excursion into V.´s past. That part was actually already written weeks ago, but never seemed to fit in the right way, so I hope it will fit in appropriately here!**

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_She moaned softly in the dark. __He growled in response. Hadn´t he forbidden any sound ? He decided to ignore it. She had been tough in a way, and she had suffered enough during the hours before – and he was too lazy to make her regret. _

_She ha__d been given to him as a punishment for her, for some reason he didn´t care for. Escorting her from her cell earlier that night to the room they were going to share for the following hours, they had come along Wade, wearing an overcontent smile and, quite unusual, his mouth shut.. _

_G__od, he hated that guy. For his boyish face, his never ending talk – and in exactly that moment, for realizing that he had already had some fun that night. Victor had been able to imagine things just too good. She would have been young. If Wade had been able to choose, depending on how heartily he had sucked up to Stryker that day, she would have been young enough to be possibly untouched. Even if not, Wade would pretend she _had_ been afterwards for days. _

_Having felt __his own entertainment´s racing pulse under his grip, he had also been able to imagine all the stuff he would have told the girl to seduce her – but still he would have raped her after that, after having filled her mind with all the weird stuff he himself wasn´t able to get along with. He had smelled the woman besides him, which had been fallen from grace for something. She was at least old enough to know what lay ahead and unlike Wade, he would definitely _not_ pretend that everything would be fine. Spare her the sweet talk. They gave _her_ to him for punishment. They gave that other poor soul to Wade for _his_ pleasure. Surely assuming that there wouldn´t be too much damage to her body. Still, the question had occurred to him which alternative was more cruel._

_He felt her movements besides him, cutting in on his thoughts.__ It brought her scent back to him, overlying the scent of their surroundings, the bed, the smell of the slightly damp concrete walls he hated so much, the long never ending tunnels they were hiding in…_

He suddenly flinched, waking up through that. Feeling kind of appalled in the first moments of consciousness, he drifted back to a strained doze, realizing his current surroundings and state slowly. Foremost, there were no concrete walls. Second, he was quite sure that Wilson was not around. Third, the body besides him had not suffered the night before. Well, not too badly.

He could only blame himself for this unpleasant start. He had become lazy, sleeping more than the usual three or four hours. That always caused bad dreams. Dreams of things he wasn´t willing to remember. Ironically, there were rarely dreams of times before he started to work under Stryker´s command. It was also possible that he just didn´t remembered them, but he would only wake from sleep with a start with memories of _them_. Not Wraith or Dukes. Not even Wilson or his brother. But all the other guys he had stayed with for years – at least all the ones he had hated. Stryker. Zero. The countless faceless employees around, hardly trying to hide their disgust – doing this only as they were afraid of his rage. They _had_ feared him. But still, they had never respected him.

Sethra moved again besides him, turning in her sleep. She had hit a nerve when she had told him that she needn´t to be threatened non stop to respect him. He had figured that she was right about that. It only seemed that he had forgotten about the difference between fear and respect over the years. Or, more likely, he had just never wanted to admit that they were not the same. It was a quite comfortable thought that there was no difference - especially for somebody who succeeded so easily in causing fear like him.

He rarely envied people for something. The girl was no exception, in general. But if he´d ever do, it would be for her ability to sleep - deeply, quietly and untroubled, despite the fact that here life was not untroubled at all at the moment. _Her_ mind would give her trouble during the day, making her broody, nagging, moody or frustrated. But she had peace during the nights. Things worked the other way round for him. He was able to stop his mind while conscious without the slightest problem, but he wouldn´t make it through the night if he slept too long.

So it was a good way to have some fun before falling asleep, getting his body tired during that, and fade out to sleep feeling the weight and warmth and peace of her upon him. As she was usually more exhausted, she would fall asleep before he did. Her steady breath, the easeful up and down of her chest calmed him down.

Now, she lay on her side, half turned to her belly. The sheets covered her tattooed shoulder what he was grateful for. Only partly covered by the blankets, the other shoulder, the bandaged arm and one leg exposed, the lengthening dark hair in a mess, she looked quite vulnerable. And young. Compared to his span of life, very young. For a moment, the dream and the memories were back, he himself condemning Wade for abusing the girl.

She was still wearing her tags, though she had been on sick leave for months again. She wasn't willing to take them off, like she wasn´t willing to accept that that career was finished. He cut through the chain easily. It happened on the spur of the moment. The tags slid to the sheets.

He picked them up, cautiously to avoid any sound, and let them disappear under his clothes, contended. Sometimes, people had to be forced to accept certain things, and sometimes, small things like this helped more than any talk. He leant back, watching her for a moment, relaxing. If the tattoo could have been removed as easily, too, he would have been glad. If the scars underneath could have been…. Well. They couldn´t.

This was just another weird thing about her, giving him trouble. He had marked territory on other women´s bodies before. The difference here was that this girl had highlighted this. Somehow exposed it instead of trying to hide it. Adding her own share to it. He guessed that he hated the thing as some weird reaction of his ego to her interaction.

He felt her waken again, still in his embrace. She moved slowly, searching for skin contact when she felt his forearm around her waist. Her naked form softly pressing against him made him harden immediately. He didn´t dare his hearing when she chuckled lowly. "Are you laughing at me ?" he asked, suspicious. He grabbed her wrist and brought her bandaged forearm in front of her face.

"Do you never learn ?" She smiled. "I´ve already told you that I know how dangerous you are." "Not what I meant!" he returned. "If you´d have listened to me, this " – he cautiously tapped at the bandage ", would never had happened." "You´re not seriously gonna blame me for the whole mess ?" she asked in disbelief. She really started to enjoy these conversations with him at her back. They always led to the point where she finally had to face him to be sure that the guy was really not joking.

"You should have listened", he insisted. "_You_ should have_._ I told you how many times that I don´t take orders ? And _before_ you start again, not taking orders is just _not the fuckin´ same_ like disrespecting you!" He let her wait for an answer for some moments.

"Did your father ever chasten you ?" he then asked. There it was – she just couldn´t believe he was serious. She turned to him. "Holy gods, Victor! I was born in the late 70ties!" His gaze told her that he didn´t catch up. "Ever heard of non-violent upbringing ? Besides, have you any idea of what my mother would have done to him if he had ever _tried_ ?"

She laughed. "And you´re forgetting that genetic defects work right from the beginning. No use to give me a smack on the bottom, honey." She had half expected his answer. "I´d bet I could make you feel." "Forget about it", she answered, bending forward to kiss him. "I think I already got this week´s beating." "You´re not gonna lecturing me for that ?" he asked when their lips parted. She only shrugged, then smiled. "I figured, this time, it was just the price for playing with fire."

This time, she simply had gotten her fingers burned.


	31. Carrot and stick

**Wow everyone, considering that this story was originally planned as a short introduction thing for V. meeting the rest of the X men, things have developped in a surprising way - just read, hopefully enjoy, please review!**

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She was on the veranda. Instead of using one of the armchairs or the swing, she was sitting on the wooden floor, one knee pulled close to her chest, fingers folded around it. Staring into nothing. He felt suddenly reminded on the day they first met. The expression showing on her face was quite the same. Stunned. Somehow confused. And ready to fight who- or whatever got in her way.

"What´s wrong ?" She looked up. "Nothing", she replied. He snarled. A lie. "Answer me." He knew his demanding tone would annoy her. She moved slowly, stretching the muscles of her back and shoulders. He got the impression that she had been sitting there like this for hours. He noticed the mobile phone besides her. "If that loser…" "Stop!" she told him. "My aunt called me this morning."

He reached out to give her a hand getting up. After a moment, she took his hand, closing her fingers around his wrist, pulling herself back to her feet. When she succeeded, he bent down to kiss her – she let him, surprised. He drew back, contended. At least she hadn´t cried. He slid his hands over her shoulders. She felt stiff and cold. "She got a letter this morning, requesting that I´ll get in contact with my superiors." She smiled weakly. "I called my boss then." He growled, awaiting the unavoidable news. "They´ll discharge you finally ?" She let her eyes wander over his body and face, avoiding to meet his eyes directly. She laughed, an afflicted sound. "In fact, they offered me a job."

They had a late lunch together. She looked pensive all the time. Troubled.

They had offered her a transfer instead of discharging her. In fact, they had offered her to keep on working as a trainer – but not at one of the regular training institutions but at rehab. In fact, in a place quite similar to the one she had been sent to to recover herself not too long ago.

"So what do you think ?" he asked halfway trough his meal. As usual, she had already finished the few morsels she would eat. She shrugged. "I don´t know." Her eyes narrowed, focusing on something unspecific behind him. "I don´t know if I can do this." She had told him that her boss had proposed that transfer. He had known her father, and David as well. He knew her since she´d been a child. And she got his points perfectly. She was offered to keep up with the job she felt right doing, staying on duty, even if not "active" in that way, working with people who had to manage their injuries. At the same time, there could be taken care of her own illness if necessary.

The offer reminded her of the guy who had trained her when she´d been to rehab. He had gotten badly injured in a military operation somewhere in the Middle East years ago, not able to return to active duty. She had liked him. A quiet guy, in peace with what had happened to him, encouraging her to get over her own injury and the shock.

"Why shouldn´t you ?" he interrupted her thoughts. She shrugged again. "I don´t know. I mean, this is not only about the physical injuries people there have to face. I had just a training accident! They are often badly traumatized of war operations or watching their comrades die or something like that!" "I think you got a way with people that would work there", he stated. She gave him a surprised look. His statement surprised her. "I just wonder if this is not only a bad excuse – I don´t wanna be pushed off that way!" She smiled wrily. "It´s just that I´ll feel reminded of my own fuckin´ accident and this seizure shit every fuckin´ day there!" "And what ?" he challenged. "Seems that you got to accept that anyway, no ?"

This time, she stared at him. "I am not quite sure if _you _are the right person to tell me how I should manage to accept my health deficits." He stared back. "There are other things besides physical problems one´s to accept in life", he returned. She bit her lip, knowing he was right. Considering again.

There were also things not directly related to her job. For example this weird affair of theirs. Not willing to give that up, she also realized that she couldn´t live on like this forever – at least, she had to earn her living somehow. He seemed somehow to be considering the same. "So where is this place they want you to work at ?" he asked. She sighed. "Westchester County. New York." He nodded, chewing. That wasn´t away too far.

She put one bare foot on the edge of the chair, putting her chin on her knee. "How much time you have to decide ?" he asked. "Four weeks." She hated it already now. Four whole weeks to wrack her brains about that crap, too. Well, it should have been the most important thing to think about for the last months, anyway. She lifted her head, one forearm resting on her knee now. Again, she looked quite young to him. Almost fragile. "What shall I do ?" she asked pleadingly. He had finished his meal, leaning back. "I think you should follow your instincts."

She took a deep breath, suddenly angry. "How shall I follow my fuckin´ instincts with my mind full of fuckin´ crap I don´t want and don´t understand! I´ll get goddamn crazy if this doesn´t stop! I can´t think! I don´t even know when I could last decide what´s an instinct and what´s new sick shit my mind created." He knew that this outbreak was not about him, so he let her rage. "And what could you do against that ?" She shrugged. "I just feel like disappearing in these fuckin´ woods until my mind´s back in order! Do a trip just somewhere. Be away from here and outside, get tired. I thought it would help to sort this mess here out, but it makes things only worse! I´ll think about everything but not about the things I need to decide about!"

"And why don´t you do that trip ?" Her features froze. "I – can´t !" She got up, reaching out for the plates. "Too dangerous. Irresponsible. I shouldn't drive up to here every time alone. This will end up in a fuckin´ crash someday, and maybe somebody else will be hurt or killed then." He had already wondered about that point. So she _knew_. Pig-headed again, she had come here alone several times against better knowledge.

He watched her, struggling silently against that fury. Well, not that silently. She dropped the plates too early over the sink and smashed one. The muscles in her shoulders clenched. He could tell that she was not too far away from breaking more.

"We can do this trip. If you want."

For a moment, silence sank over the room. Her palms rested on the surface in front of her, anger still seething inside her. Besides, this offer confused her. Finally, she turned. "You´re serious ?" "I am." She looked stunned. "Wow", she then said.

He nodded. "Fine." He would enjoy a trip to the Rockies. "I got business near to where you live. Should be done within three or four days." She watched him, gnawing at her lower lip. _What fuckin´ kind of business ? _"Three rules", he then added. "First, I´ll chose the route and where we stop. Second thing, we´ll take my car! I am not going to bet every morning if this rustbucket out there is going to break during the day or not." He gave her a stern look. "Third thing : you´ll do outside there what I tell you. If you should only _think_ about discussing the taking-orders-thing, you´re going to spend the rest of our trip…." "Naked and tied up in the backseat ?" she interrupted him sarcastically. His eyes narrowed. He chuckled. Too comfortable. "I thought about naked and hungry in the woods. I´ll bet you´d take orders _then_!" He exposed the edge of a canine. It was about time to settle that matter anyway.

To his surprise, she didn´t even try to contradict. He grabbed her around the waist when she passed him to get something to drink, forcing her down to his lap. "I warn you. Consider this. If you agree now and I´ll have to remind you on the way, I promise you´ll be in trouble." She sighed. "Come on", she said. "I can try, but I can´t guarantee that, and you _know_ that!" He realized that she might not challenge his command – but she might discuss for every sentence if it had been an order or not. "Your choice", he stated. She placed a soft kiss on his lower lip. "I´ll behave. I promise." "Don´t get me wrong, girl, this is not going to be a nice trip with a fine dinner and a comfortable bed at the end of every day." She leant her head against his shoulder, kissing the soft spot right beneath the outline of his jaw. "Idle threats", she challenged.

Mentioning business had reminded him of something else. "Then get back home tomorrow and I´ll pick you up on Sunday." He reached for his jacket behind him and brought a packet of money out of a pocket, throwing it to the table. "Get some provisions, will you." She stared at the packet, then at him. "For all of that ?" she asked lamely. He rolled stonegray eyes for a moment. "I still owe you money for my clothes." And, as they both knew, for a lot of food and stuff.

She reached out, picking the small bundle up and turning it in her fingers. "Even _you_ don't eat _that_ much." She annoyed him, playing the fool, but he also realized that she didn´t seem to feel offended – _good_ – and that she again didn´t ask about it – _even better_. He slowly ripped the back of her yellow shirt with one claw. She gasped. "What …. ?" He chuckled. "I don't like that colour and I like it even less on you", he stated. "And if something´s left, get something in deep red or green." She frowned, putting the money back to the table. Then she smiled. "Carrot and stick, huh ?"


	32. Mankind survived

**Here we go, and we´re really heading for the end finally, though there are still a few chapters to come ! (Don´t worry, sequel´s already on it´s way!) **

**As I am not that well informed about geographical details and distances, I´ll keep things a little bit vague, hoping that you´ll be comfortable with that. **

**I request the usual things - read, enjoy and review ! Thanks for yor brave loyalty!  
**

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When they finally started for that trip, she had no idea what his plans was for this.

He had picked her up at a lonely closed motel outside the city. She arrived early and had to wait there for a while, feeling quite uncomfortable. Finally, a huge black SUV rolled into the parking lot. She threw the comic she´d been reading to the back and stared at the car. The whole thing was bigger than a normal SUV, looking more like a pick up with a closed cargo area. The rearmost windows were shaded, intransparent from outside. She realised that there was enough space for them to even sleep in there quite comfortably if it should be necessary. The thing looked quite new – and expensive.

She watched him getting of. As every time when she hadn´t seen him for some days, she was impressed of the dark ferocity and power he virtually radiated. She went over to him slowly, not quite sure what would be adequate as a greeting. He decided that for her, cupping the back of her head in one huge hand, bending down to her for a violent kiss. She felt herself blush. He bit her lip, knowing that she wouldn´t feel it but taste the blood. "Missed me ?" he asked.

They started to pack their provisions and equipment into his car. She studied the interior for a moment. "Impressed ?" he asked. She gave him a contemptuous side glance while putting a crate of water bottles into the rear. "I really don't see why you ´d prefer this one to my good old Dodge, you know." He laughed menacingly. "I can rape you on the backseat without being seen." She rolled her eyes. "Oh, I got it." "Stop staring and get the stuff in, I wanna leave." She smiled when he turned his back on her. In fact, she had missed him. She actually liked his way, had gotten used to it. Grumpy. Sarcastic. Cynical. Close-mouthed. Sometimes, when he tried his best to drive her crazy in bed, she quietly suspected herself of even sharing his likes for violence and blood in a way. But she would never have admitted that.

He had been positively surprised when they had packed the stuff in the car. She had brought the right things. Thinking quite practical. Nonperishable provisions. The right clothes. Sleeping bags. Trekking poles for her.

It took them the day to reach the Rockies. The highways got less frequented the further they got. She liked to look around. They only stopped once to get some coffee. When she got back to the car, she finally asked. "Shall I drive for a while ?" He gave her a weird look. "Why ?" She rolled her eyes. "You could be tired after hours ?" He grinned. "Get in." She hissed, getting back into the passenger´s seat, handing him over his coffee. "I don´t tire that quickly", he stated. She settled back in her seat, cautiously taking a sip of her own. He started the car and steered it back to the road. "You could simply have asked me for letting you drive instead of pretending to care about me, you know." She grinned. "As if you would ever let me drive your baby !" "Don´t like it ?", he asked. Her grin broadened. "Oh I do! You´ll get me one for my next birthday ?" He chuckled. "I promise – if you won´t contradict me ´til then." "Wow." She smiled. So that would never happen.

They spent the night in the car, somewhere in the middle of nowhere. She figured that he wasn´t tired at all and obviously intended to spend the whole night raping her on the backseat, but she insisted on some sleep for herself. She would need every bit of it – and it may be the last night she´d spend "indoors" in a way, so she intended to use that.

They left the car next morning and headed right into the wilderness.

He had only told her that they´d do a kind of trekking trip, finally aiming for a friend´s hunting lodge, with a huge lake on the way they could visit. He mentioned that he had visited the place a few times before. They started things slowly. He sometimes left her, instructing her about the direction to walk in, to check the surroundings. He ascertained contentedly that they were alone within a radius of several miles. The area was only sparsely populated and the landscape quite impressive. Nobody would disturb them out here.

She had only seen him fight once, months ago. Still, she remembered quite good how he had leaped over the car to fight that insane guy walkin´ round killing women. She realized how little she knew about his habits. She could tell that he spent a lot of time outside. She was sure that he had some kind of quarters somewhere around David´s house though they had never talked about that. In the beginning, she had sometimes wondered if there were not just other quarters, but other women, too. She had banned that thoughts quite quickly, deciding that he spend too much time with her to have another one around. True or not – it made her feel better, and as she guessed that she wasn´t going to find out about it, so things were fine that way.

She also knew that he usually moved much quicker than she did outside here. Well, and not only by using only his feet to cross a distance. She wondered if he really wanted to check on their surroundings or if he also used this as an excuse to move the way he was used to. That thought led directly to the question to which way he actually was more used to.

He kept the habit of appearing behind her without the slightest sound. He could tell, she hated him for that.

He had chosen quite a short distance to start with, as he was not too sure about the distance she would be able to manage a day. He had left her again, and had been away for a while, when she reached the foot of a scarp. She shortly checked for the direction. Well, she seemed to be right. Meant, she had to get up there somehow. She stood, appraising things. That slope was steep. This wouldn´t be easy, not with the large and heavy backpack. Perhaps easy to manage if you could get up there on all fours and with some startup. Not easy for ordinary human beings packed like a mule. "Bastard," she muttered under her breath, glancing around. There seemed to be no way to circumvent it. Fine!

It didn´t take long until she worked up a sweat. The trekking poles were helpful but she still slipped several times, struggling badly to regain and keep balance. Having reached the upper part of the slope, she was going to slump again when earth and leaves slipped under her boot. This time, he grabbed her backpack, steadying her. He pulled her with him up to the edge. She sat down there, panting. He watched her over, the sweat over her face and neck, the soiled trousers. "What ?" she asked, challenging. "Why the hell didn´t you wait for me down there ?" he asked. "Why the hell did you send me along that way if you knew that I wouldn´t make it ?" she shot back, half amused, half angry. Then she laughed. "You didn´t even consider that, didn´t you." There hadn´t been mentionable obstructions. Not for a big cat like him. "I don´t want you to break your neck on the first day outside here, see." She took a swig out of her water bottle. "Yeah, thanks. Would spoil you the fun to do it by yourself." "Get up, lazy piece of crap you are." She grimaced. "No reason to hurry, is there ?" She made it back to her feet.

They found a nicely sheltered place for the night. She sighed lowly, trying to make herself comfortable. She hadn't spent a night outside for years. Not without a tent at least. Thankfully, they had chosen about the warmest time of the year for this, so nights would probably not get that cold. "Gonna stick around ?" she asked him. He grinned at her. "I will", he promised. "No need to be too scared." He could tell that she didn´t feel quite relaxed. Still, she was quite exhausted after marching for hours. He assumed that she´d fall asleep easily. Actually, she did.

When she woke in the coldest hours before dawn, he was there to warm her.

He realized during the following days that both of them hadn´t been sure what to expect from each other or this trip. He knew the territory quite good and noticed that he liked her quiet approval and amazement for the beauty of the landscape around. She hadn´t asked him about his plans for this trip, fully committing lead to him. She rarely complained. Especially that surprised him, as he quickly realized that she felt badly sore soon.

He warmed her throughout the cold hours of the next night again. The third night, he tried to seduce her instead. "You´re not serious", she whispered when she realized his intentions. "What?" he asked. "Did you expect me to back off for the next three weeks ?" He had already backed off the last two days. "I´m gonna freeze to death", she said, trying to debar him from stripping her clothes off. He chuckled. "Oh I´ll warm you, darling." As she didn´t stop to struggle against him, he grabbed a handful of her hair, forcing her to stop. "Just be a good girl." He chuckled again. "Won´t take long." He tugged at the waistband of her trousers. "Get them off. " "Or what ?" she asked. "Or I´ll _rip_ them off, bitch." Him starting to use cusswords signalled his impatience clearly. "I can´t believe this", she hissed – struggling to do as she was told, as he contentedly noticed. She could also have let him rip them – they were ruined anyway, as she had ripped a big tear into it herself that day. He had picked her up when she had fallen, only shaking his head, asking her how she had ever managed to go through her military basic training as she was obviously not even able to walk straight forward without stumbling over her one feet. Well, boding ill in advance, she had additional clothes with her.

Some minutes later, he hesitated, irritated. She was aroused somehow, no doubt, but he could tell that she was everything else than relaxed. "What ?" he asked impatiently. "I can´t do this." He lifted his eyebrows, throwing her a questioning look in the weak first light of the day. "There´s nobody ´round, trust me." "I…I just feel bad." He rested back on one elbow. "What the hell does that mean ?" She rolled her eyes. "That means that I don´t want to have sex after marching through landscape for days without a single shower!" She blushed.

He watched her for a moment. Then he let himself drop backwards, sighing. "Now _you_ are not serious, are you." "I am fuckin´ serious!" she told him, embarrassed. This time, he laughed, sounding honestly amused. "You _know_ that I could follow your scent for miles days after you left. I stayed the whole night besides you. I didn´t stop breathing!" She couldn´t say that that made things more pleasant for her right now. "I just feel scruffy this way." He reached out for her, forcing her back in his embrace. "Darling, I was born in early 19th century. I´ve lived through a handful of wars. I´ve been living for too long with too many guys on too little space. Believe me – I´ve been through worse." She only hissed lowly. "Well, I haven´t", she finally answered. He chuckled. "There were times, honey, when things were not that nicely clean and antiseptic as nowadays – you´ll be surprised, but even _mankind _survived." She ignored how he emphasized mankind. "Doesn´t make me feel the slightest bit less disgusting!" He snorted. "Stupid thing! It´s just fuckin´ natural. Has it ever occurred to you that I might like that better than all that stuff overlying your own scent, giving me a fuckin´ headache half the time ?" She laughed cynically. "As if you´d have any idea of a headache!" Then she gasped suddenly when she realized what he had told her before that. "Wait a minute. Did you just say in the _19__th_ century ?"

He didn't answer first. Then he chuckled. "Would it help if I tell you that I got sex with a bunch of women over the years who definitely smelled worse than you ?" he asked. She punched him weakly, feeling herself getting red again. "Oh stop!" "You started this. And now shut up and be of some use for a while", he demanded, finally ripping through the cloth of her shirt. She tried to protest but he only grinned. "Just to avoid any misunderstandings", he told her,"this was an order."

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They finally reached the lake the following morning. She wasn´t sure if she really liked the thought of taking a swim in freezing cold water. But she would at least able to wash which would be better than nothing. He left for a while and she was glad to have some privacy.

He stayed out for longer than usual. As there was not much else to do, she went for a walk along the shore. The landscape around was more or less flat or wavy. Only one shore was bordered by an aspiring cliffside. She got up there trough the woods around, stopping at the edge of a rock from where she had a great look over the whole lake. The view was breathtaking, a small layer of mist over the surface in the pale sunlight. She enjoyed the stillness and freedom of the moment, with not a single visible or hearable sign of human civilization around. She guessed that she had just caught a glimpse of what this might mean to somebody like Victor, who had to feel like bombarded with smells and noises in every town, not to mention a bigger city.

He could tell that she liked the view, as she stood there, beaming. He was quite sure that she wasn´t wasting a single thought about the decisions she had wanted to think about right now.

She stood there for a while. Watching. Thinking. Concentrating.

Finally, he couldn't withstand the temptation any longer.

The impact of a much bigger body colliding with hers brought her over the edge in an instance. She cried out in panic. He managed to turn both their bodies in the air as calculated, hitting the surface first, protecting her from a too hard landing.

They got parted in the water, both struggling to get back up. She reached the surface first, gasping for air. He came up besides her, shaking his head shortly to get the water out of his ears and nose, reaching out for her. The wet clothes and boots would surely pull her down. She realized that he was laughing.

They somehow managed it to the shore, her whole body shaking heavily. She went down to her knees there. "Liked the bath ?" he asked. He grabbed her, chuckling, and put her back to her feet again. "Keep movin´ ", he commanded. She only hissed, standing there, freezing and trembling, trying hard to realize and overcome the shock of the free fall and the ice cold water. When she didn´t follow, he turned to her. "I said…"

Her stroke hit him surprisingly hard. He felt one fang pierce his own lower lip, drawing blood, the wound healing immediately.

Then she stood, still shaking, staring at him in a mixture of shock, anger and fear. He tasted a slight trace of his own blood in his mouth.

She hadn´t slapped him like a nice enraged little girl would have done. She had hit him with a small and hard fist, a straight blow to his jaw. If she had aimed at his nose, she would surely have broken it again. She flinched when he moved, her scent all fear, panic and anger. Tears ?

Nevertheless, he got hold of her wrist, twisting it cautiously to check for her knuckles. Two of them bleeding. Ignoring her resistance, he brought them to his mouth, gently sucking the blood away. He grabbed her neck to pull her closer, but she still resisted, her teeth chattering. "People may _die _out of shock, Victor!" She closed her eyes for a moment to calm down. "No fuckin´ x gen!" she hissed. _No healing ability._ He grinned. "You´re alive, aren´t you." "You´re such an asshole!" she hissed.

Before he could answer or do something, she gasped, her face losing all colour. The shock finally made impact on her body. He caught her, settling her down cautiously. She couldn´t decide if she should feel more embarrassed or angry.

He brought her back to where they had spent the night, rubbing her dry roughly, making her skin burn. She got into some dry underwear. Then she turned her boots, water dripping out of them. She dropped them frustrated and turned her backpack over to check for some dry shirt and trousers. She was glad that she even had a second pair of trekking shoes with her – though she had packed them in case they got into bad weather or something. Her scent told him that she was still angry. He threw her one of his shirts. "Cover yourself, darling, before I lose patience." "Ha!" She got into the shirt. "You just screwed up, bub. Do you really think you still get whatever you want after that ?" He had already changed and turned to her, grinning. "Indeed, honey." She stuck out her tongue at him. "I am sorry, _honey_, but in that particular matter, you´re wrong." He grinned. Viciously. She grabbed her pants, hurrying to get into them. "Do you really think _that_ will prevent me from anything ?" he asked mischievously.

He pinned her against a tree in her back, staring down at her. There was the beginning of a smile on her face. "Something´s funny ?" he asked. This time, she chuckled. "Is this how you like things ?" she asked. "Outside here, my back against a tree ?" She felt one of his hands on her naked leg. "Maybe", he growled, realizing that her skin still felt cold. "You´re not going to apologize that way, are you ?" she teased. He stopped. Then brought her chin up with one hand, shaking his head teasingly. „Silly thing." He laughed lowly. "I might have." He ripped through the cloth of her panties. "Now I won´t."

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The hadn´t gone far when it started to rain. Heavily. He had left her again on her own, but she realized that he had been on her heels, though invisible, as he was back within minutes. They took shelter under some overhanging rocks, huddled closely together to avoid the rain as there was not much space. He pulled her to his lap, determining that she looked miserable. "We´re close to the house", he told her. "We should reach it in an hour. Think you´ll make it?" She nodded. "Sure." "You can have a bath then." She finally rested her head against his shoulder, sighing. "Hopefully a warm one", was the only comment.

They waited for a while – the bad weather just seemed to have started. She grew weary by the warmth of his body and yawned. "You´re exhausted", he stated. "Well, that was what I was looking for." He softly caressed the back of her neck. "Take it easy. I don't want to have to carry you the whole way back to the car." Besides her tiredness, she realized the concern in his voice.

"You prefer it outside here, don´t you ?" she asked after a while. "What do you mean?" She shifted her weight to get into a more comfortable position, shivering as soon as she left the radius of his body heat for a moment. "No walls", she answered quietly. He stared down at her. "Have you been imprisoned for long ?" she suddenly asked. She felt the sudden tense in his muscles and regretted the question immediately. Still, he answered. "No. Never for long." The indications of that made her shiver again. "But several times ?" "Yeah." She touched his chest with one hand. "I shouldn´t have brought that up." His fingers slid into her hair. "Don´t bother." She sighed. "But I do." They fell silent again for a while.

Finally, his curiosity won. "How did you know ?" he asked. She sniffed. "About your claustrophobic tendencies ?" She chuckled. "I got eyes, man." So much time passed after that that she didn´t expected him to answer something to that when he did. "Is it that obvious ?" She frowned. Must be hard for him to admit a weak point. "No. It took a while ´til I realized." But when she had started to watch out for the signs, they had definitely been there. They fell silent again.

"What have you seen ?" she finally whispered, more to herself. He didn´t answer her this time, only brought her body closer to his, tightening his embrace. She realized that they had never shared a moment like this before. There had been intimate ones – but never one that close. He didn't need to answer. She could guess that he had seen too much.


	33. Of cats and men

**This chapter really gave me trouble, and I think it´s the one which definitely saw most complete changes in it during the writing! **

**Musical credits this time go to Iced Earth for writing and performing "The Hunter" ! **

**Please kindly welcome my favourite merc in this chapter, too - definitely about time to bring another lovely mutant guy in!  
**

**Same procedure as before - read, hopefully enjoy and review! Thanks!  
**

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She would never have admitted that, but she felt endless relief when the lodge got into sight.

What had looked like a simple log cabin from outside emerged as quite luxurious and spacious dwelling – somebody had obviously spent some money to make this place cosy, she could tell. She had expected them to hunker down in some motel along the road. This came as a nice surprise to her.

She got a hot and long bath that evening. If he had hoped for some nice entertainment that night, he wouldn´t have been lucky. She fell asleep on one of the couches around the fire place as soon as she´d settled down there.

The next day was spoiled by another seizure, making her faint in the early morning. He had been around, assisting her with the injection of the sedative. It was late in the afternoon when she returned to consciousness. They spend a quiet evening in front of the fire. He teased her about the incident at the lake the day before. She listened in quiet surprise when he told her that his brother had always been afraid of water as a child after that, amazed, as she had never felt that close to him before.

She woke up alone the next morning – well, she had been used to that before. She would usually wake earlier, but today, she had slept quite long, surely as a consequence of the seizure, and presumably also as a consequence of her exhaustion caused by the marches the days before. She found a note besides the bed, telling her that he was out for the car and back around midday. She studied the elegant old fashioned looking handwriting for a moment, then sighed. He would possibly take the same way they had come by – within hours instead of days.

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Wade opened the entrance door – it hadn´t even been locked. Well, Victor had always been a rather non material guy. If he hadn´t locked the door, then out of the opinion that there was nothing worth to steal.

He stepped in, glancing around. Something drew his attention.

"Jesus, Victor – who had thought that !" He had turned one of the backpacks over onto the couch, rummaging further through its content. The black panties had already been a first highlight. He noticed the small army boots besides the fire. Definitely not Creed´s size.

If he had been on foot, Victor had smelled Wilson from half a mile ago. He cursed, getting out of the car in an instance.

"Victor ! What a pleasure!" The feral mutant rolled his eyes. "If this is not really urgent, Wilson, I promise I´ll skin you !" The good looking merc grinned. "More than a century and a half and your mood still seems to get worse – I had never thought that that would be possible!" Victor glanced around unobtrusively. Unfortunately, Sethra´s scent was more or less all over the place. No way to tell where she was right now. Meanwhile, Wade had drawn one of his swords, whirling the hilt coolly around the back of his hand, causing the blade to dance through the air. "I …. "

The mechanical sound of a gun getting loaded interrupted him. "Put the sword down!" a low voice demanded. Wade turned in surprise, staring at her. "What do we got here ?" he asked, mocking. "Don´t move!" The girl really aimed with a gun at him. The merc watched her in amuse. The defensive posture. The dark stare. The clothes. He laughed. This was unbelievable. Victor shifted his weight behind them, ready to pounce if necessary. He would have liked to slap her for appearing there instead of staying into hiding, but felt relieved that she was alive and in one piece.

"Are you really going to shoot me ?" Wade asked, sounding completely curious. She nodded. "Yeah", she answered bluntly. "Really ?" He grinned, taking a step forward. Sethra felt like having a déjà vu. "Such a sweet little thing and such a bad mood", he teased. "Seth, take the gun down", Victor commanded. Wilson took another step. Sethra tensed. She couldn´t believe that the guy really carried swords around. Wade let the blade take another turn. Victor could tell that she would lose her nerve any second. "I said put the gun down!" he barked. She finally lowered the gun. He stepped past Wilson and forced the weapon out of her hand. "And you put that fuckin´ penknife of your´s away, will you", he demanded to Wilson.

"You know that freak ?" Sethra asked. "Really, Victor", Wade complained. "Is that another member of that lovely family of yours ? I mean she looks better than you, but her manners…" "Will you shut up ?" Sethra asked, disbelieving. This was bizarre. Wade chuckled. "Oh, I get it – that kitten is _yours_." Victors features froze. "Leave", he told Sethra. „I always thought you like Asians", Wade babbled. Sethra just stared at them. "You´re deaf?!" Victor growled. She finally turned to get in again. He grabbed her shoulder. "Go for a walk", he specified. She stared at him. "Excuse me ?" "Will you get lost now!" he roared. The sheer force of his voice made her flinch. "Did I interrupt some kind of marital quarrel ?" Wade asked. Victor threw a murderous glance at her. She finally moved. She threw a last dark glance at Wade when she left. Victor would know if she tried to stay around to eavesdrop. So she left the area around the house, heading into the woods.

She finally sat down somewhere, not noticing the slightest bit of her surroundings this time. She fumed.

A while later, a sharp long whistle cut the silence. She figured that that might be the official allowance for her to return. Her anger grew. _I am not a dog, asshole_. Unfortunately, she had not much of a choice regarding the return.

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She avoided his eyes when she entered. "Where are you going ?" he snapped. "Upstairs."

"We have to talk!" She didn´t react. "Put one foot on that stair and I´ll break your legs!" he threatened. She stopped in her tracks. "Fuck – you!" she spat. He got up. "Do you remember our little talk regarding orders ?" he asked. His tone was calm. Too calm. "Spare me that!" she answered. He shook his head. "No, darling. You agreed. Now deal with the consequences." "What the hell did I wrong ?" she asked. "I don't want to have to repeat every order twice before you follow it! And you got that gun too quickly at hand !" "How should I have known that you know the guy!" "What if he´d been the owner of the place ?" "I didn´t shoot!" "Oh you would if I hadn´t been there! I know you ! If I order you to… " "I – am not – a dog!" she yelled. "I warn you", he growled. "Suit yourself!" she spat. "I am not a seven feet tall self healing brute like you, Victor! _I_ still got things to lose! _Who_ - is – that - guy ?" "None of your business." She grabbed the backrest of the chair in front of her. "But it would have been mine if he had raped or killed me !" "He wouldn´t." "That guy rifled my underwear, muttering to himself! He carried _swords_!" she snapped. "Shut up", he whispered.

She hissed. "You _knew_ that this would possibly happen! You knew we might meet him, didn't you! This is what the whole order thing is about!" His fingers twitched. "You didn´t want me to meet him – fine! But don´t blame _me _for your mistake!" He leapt forward, grabbing her throat. He pinned her against the wall behind her. Squealing, she gasped for air. "Do you stupid bitch never learn!" he snarled. She felt his claws pierce skin – the fact that she felt it all meant that he drew already blood. "You constantly overestimate yourself and you underestimate others! Have you _any_ idea what he could have done to you ?" She gasped again and he released her. She panted for air, but at least, she stayed silent for a moment. She could tell that he was close to seeing red, wild with rage. She flinched when he raised his hand – expecting him to beat her. "I should beat the living hell out of you", he growled, turning away.

"What´s next ?" she asked hoarsely, palpating her throat. "Are you ordering the lap dog to stay in its basket ?" "Don´t betray my generosity." "I am no pet! I´m a human!" She closed her eyes, knowing that she shouldn't have said that. Still, the words had slipped out without any thinking.

He half turned his head. His expression changed.

"You´re right, honey. That´s exactly what you are." The disgust ringing through his voice seemed unlimited. She stared at him. The last words hat sat. Made her feel worthless. "Do you really believe that you´re a match to me ?" he asked. "Don´t gimme that!" she whispered. He fully turned to her, only a single step away. "Look at you", he told her. "You´re so pathetic. The little combat queen – it would only take me a single blow to break your neck." "Shut up", she whispered. This time, _he_ hissed. "Keep taking your foolishness for bravery – but you´d better accept that you´re not even able to survive a regular day on your own!"

"Would you have cared at all if he had raped or killed me ?" she asked. "Do you know what happens to pets when they become a burden ?" "Son of a bitch", she muttered. He reached out and followed the outline of her jaw with a single clawed finger, watching her flinch again. "You´re not even worth the beating", he growled. He moved his head in a dismissive gesture. "And now get out of my sight."

She watched him for another moment. He stared back at her, almost bored. Cold. For the first time, _she_ left the house after that dispute.

For the first time, she would have preferred the beating.

She cried out in frustration outside, a sound ringing odd and alien like in her ears. She didn´t walk for long. If she had been at home, she would have withdrawn to some corner. As she wasn´t, she just sat down somewhere, leaning back against a tree. There had never been big fights between Matthew and her before – as she had never shouted at him like this. She might not feel the hot tears streaming down her face. But not being able to feel subtle touches or light physical pain didn´t mean that she couldn´t get hurt inside.

To make things worse, she knew that she had go to back, the second time for that day. To face him again. Even ignoring everything else that had happened – she had not the slightest idea where they exactly were or how she could get back into civilization. It entered her mind that he might leave her here – somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Just abandon the pet. Maybe he already had. But whatever he was going to do or not, there was only one way to find out. It made her want to smash something. But, as he was right regarding that matter - the only thing that would got smashed being likely herself - she kept sitting there, weeping silently, pain burning deeply inside. She had never cared for the cuts and scratches he had left on the surface. This was completely different.

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She headed directly for the stairs when she entered. "Stay", he ordered lowly across the living room. She didn´t. She just wanted to wash her face and get to bed – for the first time for months, she wanted to be there all alone.

She sat on the bathroom floor, back against the bath tube, her arms around her knees. She had heard him come, figuring that he let her hear it willingly. She tried to suppress further tears but knew that it was hopeless. She couldn´t stop. Emotions were just overwhelming here. Every time she thought she had finally made it, another wave would bring her down. Maybe she had invested more feelings in this than it had been reasonable to do. But – as strange as the whole affair had been from the start – it had always felt right. Right now, she felt simply silly and alone.

She had liked to tell him how much she hated him. Staring at the floor in front of her, she just felt she didn´t.

"Get some sleep", he finally suggested. Her shoulders straightened, telling him to spare her the advise. He wondered if she knew how easily he could read her feelings.

Finally, she got up. Slowly. He still blocked the doorway. She flinched and drew back when he reached out for her. He let his hand drop. As she refused to talk to him or to touch him, they stayed like this for a moment. At last, she couldn´t bear it any longer. "Get out of my way." The words came out hoarsely. There was no anger in her voice. Only distress. He realized that still, she hadn't begged. The muscles of her jaw tightened. "Bring me to the next town tomorrow", she said shakily. "Why ?" The question stunned here. She breathed. "I wanna go home." More tears flowed. Actually, though the reasonable part of her mind knew better, she felt like there was not even a real home to go to right now.

"What do you want from me ?" she whispered. "Do you even know ?"

He knew. There lay the problem. He actually _did_ know.

He wanted her. At _his_ home. Dressed like he liked her. Lose army pants, black tank top. No underwear. He wanted her there every time he returned. Worrying about him. Caring for him. Acting around him in that quietly contented way she usually did. He wanted her in his own bed. Every fuckin´ night. Warm. Ready. Longing.

There were limitless jealousy and possessive mentality for her, admittedly. But he knew that things were worse. He was an old guy – with old fashioned views and simple passions. He wanted her at home, at best silent, willing and obedient. Well, she would never be silent and obedient. But willing, though. He could imagine to be comfortable with that anyway, as long as the pigheaded, tenacious little thing was around.

He wanted to mark her. Let everybody see that she was his. There were the scars, but there were other ways, too. He wanted to knock her up. Watch her body swell by the most definite proof of his manhood. Bond her to him.

Still, it would never happen. He could never take her to where he lived. It wouldn´t be safe for her to even know the place, even if she wouldn´t know how to get there. He could never lock her up. She had been right when she had told him that he wouldn´t want to force her. She wouldn´t be the same. It would kill her. Destroy the peace he yearned for and which she brought to him.

He had gone through this before. These things were complicated. These women even more. She hadn´t left him. Not for threatening her, not for beating her or nearly raping her. Now she was willing to leave because of a few harsh words spoken in anger. He was old fashioned regarding that matter, too. He would not apologize.

"Get another pet", she whispered when he didn´t aswer. "And let me go."

He knew what he wanted. And he wouldn´t let her go.

"No."

"If I go to Westchester, you´ll leave me anyway."

He didn´t move. Moments seemed to stretch into eternity.

"No."

She glared at him in disbelief.

"Why can´t you trust me ?" There was no accusation in it. Just frustration.

He finally touched her wet cheek.

"It wouldn´t be safe for you." He brushed a single tear away. "No x gen", he added lowly. She failed to suppress a sob. No healing ability if she got hurt. He wouldn´t put her in unnecessary danger.

"You do despise me for this, don´t you. The weakness. Your hated humanity."

He slowly nodded. "I do." His eyes never left hers. "But I am sure that there are things you despise me for, either."

She closed her eyes for a moment. "God knows", she admitted.

"Stop crying." She sniffed, shaking her head. She couldn´t. She didn´t want, either. "You know you´re really good at wrecking people." She touched the talons of his free hand cautiously. "Even without using these." That raised the beginning of a grin. "I had a lot of time to practice."

Finally, she took a step forward and put her forehead against his chest, totally exhausted. She merely sank against him. She felt one of his hands caress trough her hair. "Get some sleep now", he murmured. "I think I´ll need some time alone", she murmured back. He hesitated for a moment. "I´ll be downstairs." He released her, intending to draw back. She gripped his shirt in a surprisingly quick move. "Don´t!"

He growled, but stayed. Wondering how _she_ dared to ask _him_ if he knew what he wanted.


	34. Consolation

Here we go, lads - enjoy, following chapter´s almost finished, so take comfort in this one for a further day or two!

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He brought her to bed, finally.

Some hours later, she went downstairs to look for him. He had settled down in one of the huge armchairs around the fireplace. He looked up from the book he had been reading. She looked wretched and bleary after the few hours of sleep, stopping at the food of the stairs. He gestured to her to come over. She sighed, but followed the request. He pulled her down to his lap, his arm resting loosely around her waist. She didn´t resist, nestling down into his warmth.

"Alright ?" he asked, sounding more grouchily than he had intended to. She nodded. "Alright." She reached for the book and read the title, then gave him a surprised look. "This is French." He only raised an eyebrow, but didn´t comment. She put it back to the small sidetable from where she had taken it. "You´re full of surprises", she stated, smiling weakly.

He snarled. "You too." She remained silent, moving into a more comfortable position, resting her head against his chest. "I thought this should be a nice trip into nature to get mind your sorted out." She realized that she liked the calm raspish sound of his voice. "Isn´t it ?" she asked. "And what the hell do you need a semi automatic gun for then ?" He gestured towards the gun on the table in front of the couch. Her fingers stopped stroking over his shoulder for a moment. "Answer me", he demanded lowly. She closed her eyes. She had had enough quarrelling for one day.

"Just in case", she muttered. "And what kind of case did you had in mind ?" he asked, his tone slightly upset. She put her head back, sighing. "Any case." Her mind worked still a little slowly. She needed a moment to understand. "Not that it would be necessary as long as you´re around." He growled, but it didn´t sound that angry. "Are you sure you´re allowed to carry this thing around ?" he asked, slightly amused. She shrugged. "I am sure that it makes me feel better." He suddenly grabbed her chin and made her look up to him. "I think you don´t trust me with certain things, either", he stated, sounding neutral.

They stared for a moment at each other, dark grey eyes into wide green ones, speckled with brown dots. "I trust you. I just don´t trust things too dangerous to know about." _For example your fine friends! _She didn´t say it, but he got it quite clear. She remembered quite clearly how badly he´d been beaten up when he had returned to David´s house back then – after another quarrel. Hard to imagine what kind of guys – and how many – it had needed for that. "There´s no reason to worry." She cleared her throat. He wanted to go on, but she put a finger over his lips softly. "May be that I again make that mistake of overestimating myself and you´re the most dangerous bodyguard I can think of. But you´re not always with me. And there are a lot of freaks out there who are crazy enough without any mutation or connection to you. Remember the guy you wrecked when I found the girl." He figured that she wasn´t as overconfident as he had thought.

"Will we have to go back ?" she asked then. "What do you mean ?" Sethra sighed, unwilling to bring that topic up again. "I mean, that wasn´t a courtesy visit today ?" She covered his free hand with hers hastily. "Take it easy. I just want to know if we got to leave." Still, he snarled. Wilson had had quite a good reason to visit – a call would had been enough, but there had been no chance to get trough to them out here. Still, things had already happened. There was no reason to hurry now. "It´s alright. I´ll take care of that when we´re back." She frowned, but nodded. "So no further visits ?" He growled. "No." She suppressed another sigh and let her body relax against his. Then she laughed. "Have you any idea how ridiculous I felt to ask the guy to put _the sword_ down ?"

„Do you know what I really despise you for ?" she asked a while later. He scratched the back of her neck playfully. Carefully, for once. "Tell me", he finally said. "I really hate you for making me feel like a child, fighting you." He laughed. Honestly. "You_ are_ a child fighting me." She sighed. "Well, thanks for the encouragement." He chuckled. "I´m a feral, sunshine, and five times as old as you. Even if you were a feral, too – it would be difficult." "It´s something that just annoys me. Makes me feel like I forgot any training I´ve ever had." She stretched for a moment, then relaxed again. "What date have we today ?" He gave her an odd look, but answered. "The thirteenth." Two days left ´til David´s birthday. She had originally planned to be at home for the day, but it seemed to be stupid. There was no use as the birthday child wasn´t there. "It´s David´s birthday in two days", she mentioned. She sighed, remembering her brother.

She enjoyed sitting there with him. Resting. He could be really quick-tempered, but in moments like this, very calm and comforting, too. "Do you think it´s also dangerous to know about your past ?" She watched for it, listened for it – actually expected it - , but there was no sign of disapproval. "Don´t think so", he finally grunted. "What about your brother then ?" She had intended to ask him if that guy had been a mutant, too, when another question occurred to her. "Is he still alive ?" It took a while until he answered. "Think so." She decided to metaphorically take the cat by the claws."Tell me if you mind me asking and I´ll stop." This time, he chuckled. That low fierce menacing sound she loved. "That would be the first order you´d ever follow." "Come on", she whispered. "So he´s like you ?" He cleared his throat. "He´s a feral, if you meant that." He paused. "But he insists on being different from me." That sounded offended. "He´s got the same healing stuff going on ?" He nodded. "Do you look similar ?" "He´s my half brother. We don't look alike." She laughed lowly. "_That_ sounded as if _you_´d insist on that point." He snarled. Then grinned. "It´s a fact." It made her feel punked that that even the self healing about 150 years old guy besides her still had some family left. She was curious about the reasons for them to break up contact, but didn´t want to ask too indiscreet questions. Victor caught himself entertaining the thought of how it might have been to have a younger sister instead of that runt of a brother.

"Where did you learn French ?" she continued the quiz, curious. He didn't answer, but straightened. She opened her mouth, but he covered it with a huge hand immediately. An instance later, she gasped when he pressed her down to the floor. She hadn´t even really _seen _the catlike move with which he had brought both of them down. "Sh!" he whispered, muscles tensing. He listened for a moment, still covering her mouth with his palm. "Stay here and down", he ordered, his voice so low that she barely understood the words. She had the presence of mind to only nod, gazing after him when he moved silently to one of the windows and disappeared outside without a sound.


	35. Outbreak

**Be warned - some violence used in this chapter! If you don´t like, just scroll over it!**

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He grabbed the first guy before the loser had even noticed him. He broke his neck in a quick move – he was sure that the guy he hadn´t been alone and he wouldn´t give him the chance to call for the rest of them. All senses sharp to a quite supernatural point, he could make out at least three others next to him. A shoot fell, the bullet piercing a tree´s trunk besides him. Firearms. They improved, he figured, but not quickly enough. He crossed the small courtyard in front of the house without hesitating or struggling for cover. Three strong leaps brought him to the edge of it, crashing into another guy. He died as quickly as his companion had. More shoots fell, bullets hitting trees and earth around him. He finally slipped out of sight, considering the situation again. There were more guys out there. _Fuck_. He should have _known_. He leaped forward, striking the next one down with a single brutal swipe of his clawed hand. Another one fired. The projectile pierced his shoulder. He whirled round, roaring, baring his teeth.

He realized that he had no chance to find out how many they were this way. He finished the guy who had finally hit him, then returned to the point where he had entered the yard first. In plain sight. It worked. Two guys, thinking of themselves as very clever, left their coverage. They entered the yard, too, slowly, aiming strange looking guns at him. Then he realized the short sting of sickness he had felt when he´d been shot. He snarled. At least some of the idiots carried cure loaded weapons. They hadn´t realized yet that he was immune against any kind of injections, his body neutralizing everything too fast to show any impact. Still, he figured that it might weaken him if he got hit too often by that stuff.

He stopped. Observing. For a single moment, Sethra just watched him, stunned. He simply stood there, leg´s apart, knee´s slightly bend, half ducked down. He persevered. Actually _lurking_, the claw armoured hands ready to strike, fangs bared. There was some kind of slow but constant growl. Wild. Feral. The whole pose would have been enough to send any reasonable people to run – he didn´t even cover himself, presenting his unprotected chest to them as if to provoke them. Her mouth went dry. She felt the muscles of her arms and neck clench. Two other guys came in sight from the left side – behind his back.

Pushing the entrance door open a little, lying still flat down to the floor, she fired.

Victor flinched when one of the guys behind him stumbled. He had heard them approach – time enough to take care of them when they drew closer. He roared, more out of frustration than rage, but his opponents didn´t realize that. _Why could she never…_ "Get down!" He followed the powerful voice out of instinct. Daggers of the length of his forearms whirred over his head, finishing two other guys off. More shoots fell from the house. Sethra had gotten up to her feet, pressing against the inner wall besides the door. Victor just glanced in her direction in the moment she pushed the door open widely, bringing herself in the line of fire herself for a moment to aim at a guy at the opposite side of the yard.

His eyes widened when he noticed the figure right behind her. Wade had seen it by the same time. "DOWN !" the merc roared, hoping the best for Creed´s kitten for a moment and – as he was running out of daggers - threw one of his katanas with a powerful move.

She felt the airdraft when the blade shot past her head, missing her only by some millimetres, impaling the man behind her. Just in time. Another man drew closer to her. Flames flared up from the direction he had come from. Out of instinct, she immediately let her body drop down when he raised one hand – sending a fireball towards her face. The smell of burning wood filled the air. She hurried outside – being without any cover now. "Fire!" she shouted, watching Wade blocking a bullet with the remaining sword, sending the shot right back to the direction it had come from. "Watch out !" she cried when another man approached Victor from behind. She fired and hit. The six feet high brute turned his head into her direction. His scarred face and menacing stare let her blood run cold.

"He´s mine!" Wilson roared, catapulting himself over the half yard in an instance. As if Sethra had longed for fighting the guy! "This time you die !" he promised the much bigger mutant. The other one only grinned. She was sure that she had hit him, at least four or five times. But then she got distracted by something else. The fireguy appeared behind her. She turned too late to shoot, so she attacked otherwise, landing quite a blow, two other strokes quickly following. The younger one stumbled for a moment. "The lighters!" Wade shouted. "Without them he´s nothing!" Sethra had no idea what he was talking about, but noticed the pocket lighters fixed to the inner sides of each of the man´s wrists. Flames stroke her upper arm for seconds before she managed another attack. Adrenaline shot trough her body once again, the pain of the incineration on her arm doubling it. Another hit made the guy fade out, his body sagging down to the ground. "Seth!" Victor shouted.

Too late. The impact of a projectile hitting her shoulder made her stumble and almost fell onto the guy to her feet. She turned, facing the man who had shot her. "How´s _that_ ?" the other one asked nonchalantly. She stared at him, irritated. The guy obviously expected some further reaction. She did the same, waiting for something to happen for an instance. The projectile had hit her hard, but had fallen down to the ground after that. It looked similar to the small phials she carried around in her injection set.

Nothing happened.

The other one´s smile faded, changing into the same confused expression Sethra was wearing. She reacted a split second earlier than him. Caught him by surprise. It took only seconds ´til they were both on the ground. A punch, a violent dig with the elbow, a kick. Bones cracked in the other one´s knee. She bent forward and, instead of struggling against the grip the guy had gotten on her wrists, knocked her head right into his face. Blood splashed. She had at least managed to break his nose, more likely his cheekbones, too. Then somebody grabbed her neck from behind, pulling her back easily like a doll. She whirled ´round, but Victor blocked her blow while setting her down to her feet. Wade was besides them now, obviously finished with his chosen brute. He went down to one knee, pressing one of the attackers´weapons against the guy´s chest. Without a warning, he pulled the trigger. Two times. Just to make sure.

The man´s body started to twitch, slightly first, then heavily. She stood back in shock. He groaned but wasn´t able to steady himself. Wilson kicked him violently in the ribs. "_How´s that_, you bastard! Now you can answer your question yourself, dickhead! Disturbing other people´s holidays with such a shame of a performance!" He brought his sword down in a vertical move, piercing the other ones guts. The former attacker cried out. "Didn´t know that you´re ridiculous cure projectiles don´t work anymore, huh ?"Victor asked gloatingly, pretending. "Better talk, Miller – how comes that you grace us with your presence ?" "Fuck you!" the Miller called guy spat. "Wrong answer", Wade lectured, turning the sword that still stuck in the other one´s belly, causing a short somehow greasy sound and the man to cry out in agony. Sethra turned away from the scene, suddenly feeling sick.

Victor lost patience. Getting down to one knee next to the man, he sliced the other mutant´s face. "Spit it out before I slice the rest of you open", he commented casually. The other mutant seemed to have realized that there was no hope for him. "Do you really think you´re _that_ important, Creed ?" he only hissed. "A brainless feral and a guinea pig like _you_ ?" he addressed Wilson. "I´d really have enjoyed to see the little bitch beg and plead while bleeding to death", the doomed mutant stammered. "What a pity that the lady wasn´t here!" Wade snarled. "The girl would have finished you and your brainless monkeys off in a twinkling of her sweet Asian eyes." Wade started to move, but Victor gestured to him to stop. "Get your penknife out of him", he told his companion. "That´s my affair." The feral and the merc exchanged a glance. Then Wade grabbed the handle of the sword and pulled it out. "Have fun, tomcat." "Watch around", Victor ordered before he turned to concentrate his attention to his old enemy´s favourite henchman. "Try again", he demanded darkly.

Sethra hadn´t comprehended much of that sick kind of conversation up to that point and missed the rest of it. She fought a hard fight against her rebelling stomach. Refusing to watch the torturing any longer, she found herself watching the lodge burst into flames instead. Wade had picked up another one of the guns of their opponents had dropped. The young fellow she had knocked unconscious and who had set the house on fire slowly regained consciousness. "What about the little firebug over here ?" Wade asked, his tone so light as if he had just asked Victor if he´d prefer a whiskey or a beer to drink. Victor looked up from his victim for a moment, considering. "Teach him some respect", he suggested. "Then we´ll send him back to the rathole your scrubby _commander_ is hiding in", he addressed the man on the ground. Wade shot the young man and another survivor with the cure loaded weapon. Their bodies, lifeless to that point, twitched in the same way the Miller guy´s body had done. Victor threw a quick glance at Sethra. "Think there are more ?" Wade nodded. "Yup. Think so. Though they seem to bee too scared to come out." He grinned. "Shall we have a look ?" Victor snarled. "I´ll do. Keep our buddy here some company meanwhile." He threw Wade a dark look, looked over to Sethra and back to the merc. Wilson grinned. "Oh I _can_ take care of that, too", he chuckled. "Don't even _think _about it", Victor warned, then left.

Sethra experienced the next half an hour like in a blur. Victor returned after a while. The house was now ablaze. She got ordered into the car and followed meekly. She didn´t notice the two men picking up the bodies and getting rid of them at the burning lodge. She didn´t notice them sending the two surviving invaders back to their principal. She didn´t even notice them approaching the car.

Victor opened the backdoor, watching her, sitting in the middle of the backseat. She looked like an abandoned child. "Come here", he commanded. She didn´t move at first. "Seth!" She flinched, having been completely unaware of her surroundings. "Come over here." She drew closer and he examined her burned upper arm, growling. Wade entered the passenger´s seat. "How do we do ?" he asked, glancing at the incineration. Victor checked her out quickly. Some bruises, her lip bursted, her knuckles bleeding and swollen. No further serious injuries. Wade gestured towards her arm. "Kitty needs a doc", he stated. Victor threw him a murderous glance. Wilson only grinned. A part of the lodge´s roof crashed down with a creaking sound. "We should get out of here", Wade suggested.

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She didn´t remember much of their way back afterwards. Wilson suggested to stop with an old friend to get "Kitty" the needed medical attention. Victor agreed. Wade warned Catherine of the three of them coming. She awaited them at the closed medical office. Victor eyed the veterinary´s sign outside disapprovingly but didn´t comment. Catherine´s medical knowledge could be trusted, though due to his healing ability, he had never needed it himself. He glanced at the silent individual in the backseat. She looked pale and sick. Hadn´t spoken a single word since they had left. He got the impression that she would simply slip of her seat if somebody would unlock her seatbelt. He had a bad feeling about this.

Catherine checked her patient out quickly. "We´ll get you something against the pain first", she stated.

The sedative took hold quickly. Victor watched her fade out, the small but stout body relax. Catherine took care of the incineration. "She got the cure ?" she asked. Both Victor´s and Wade´s injuries had healed up hours ago, but their torn clothes told her enough. "She got a dose", he answered, only reluctantly admitting. Catherine gave him a stern stare. "But she´s human." The medic raised her eyebrows, but didn´t comment. "The burning is not bad. Just superficial." She tugged at the sleeve of Sethra´s shirt, glancing around for a pair of scissors. Victor lost patience and assisted her tersely with a claw. She worked silently and efficiently, sparing him any comment about the already healed scars covering her patient´s body. Creed didn´t appreciate her as a woman, but was glad about her silent discretion as a medic. She then took care of the rest of the smaller injuries, cleaning them, feeling supervised by the dangerously silent feral on the opposite site of the table.

She equipped him with some painkillers, bandaging material, some antiseptics and advise. He only nodded. "What do I owe you ?" She glared at him. "Wilson said you finished the little Miller." He only stared. "I´ve got no use for money", she then told him. "Just keep it in mind." He nodded. She started to clean up the stuff she had used. Finally, she looked up again when he didn´t move. "Is there something else ?" she asked. "How long will she sleep ?" he asked. "Not long. An hour or two." "Can you make her sleep the whole night ? Think she´ll need it." She nodded slowly, reaching out for the sedative, preparing another injection.

He picked something out of his pocket meanwhile and handed it over to her when she had finished. "Tell me something about this." She opened the small flat case and checked the injection set out. She only glanced over the ingredients. "It´s mainly a sedative. It´s used to palliate the effects of epileptic seizures. But it doesn´t affect the trigger – only the consequences. Makes the muscles slacken." She looked down at the girl. "Hers ?" He nodded. She considered for a moment. She looked at the set again, then closed the small case. "I think it´s quite a high dose. Be careful with that. Has she always been afflicted with epilepsy ?" He shrugged. "No. It´s a consequence of a head injury." She gave him an irritated look, gesturing towards the injection set. "Sounds strange. Looks to me like somebody didn´t know what to make out of it. But it doesn´t do any harm at least." "What about the cure ?" he asked, remembering the doze she had been hit by. "No impact on humans", she told him. She watched him lifting up the girl carefully, trying to stop thinking about the late visitors. It would only disturb her sleep.


	36. End of a summer

Sethra woke up in her own bed. It took here some minutes to realize that she was back at her aunt´s house. She merely jumped out of the bed after realizing that – regretting it seconds later. She had to sit down until the walls stopped shaking and turning around her. It was obviously early evening, the last light of the day fading.

She looked around. Checked the house. Then the driveway.

She looked a second time. Then searched. The house. Through her stuff. There was nothing.

She waited. For a while. The rest of the night. The following days.

Finally for a week. Then two.

* * *

As there hadn't been any sign of life of him for three weeks, she came to the conclusion that he had left her. Maybe because he thought that things had gotten too dangerous. Maybe as she could never have been a match to a man like him. Maybe as she had finally become a pet being a burden.

She felt lost the first few days. Then desperate. Then sour and betrayed.

Finally only bitter.

* * *

Sometimes she wondered if the last months had been real. It didn´t seem that impossible that, after all that shit that had happened in her life, her mind had created that little adventure trip for her to flee from reality.

Well, there was proof that she definitely hadn´t imagined this.

He had left scars. Every single one a proof on its own.

* * *

She healed. She accepted the job in New York. Cameron accompanied her to her first interview there. She started training again, trying to get back into shape. She liked to meet Cameron for this. Fighting him. Quarrelling with him. Having some dinner with him afterwards. Still, he stayed what he always had been – a close friend. She missed a lover.

She sometimes asked herself if she would ever meet a man like him again; already knowing the answer.

She missed the whole thing. The quarrels, the trouble, the bruises. Their nice little conversations, the sound of his voice. His warmth. Admittedly – the sex. But most of all, the moments they had shared in a more than comfortable silence.

* * *

She went to bed early in the evenings. Knowing that sleep wouldn´t come for hours. She sometimes felt like he was gone, but had left her whatever had always given him trouble to sleep.

She even returned to David´s house for some days. Everything was exactly like it had been when they had left the last time. As she had half expected, half feared, he wouldn´t show up.

So she finally finished sorting her dead brother´s stuff. Leaving most of it where it belonged, taking only some preferred things with her.

There was also stuff another certain guy had left here. Not much. Two shirts, a hunting knife, a jacket. She considered to just dump it but couldn't. So she decided to keep it there. The lodge was big enough to take in both the stuff and the memories of her dead brother. It would also be big enough to take in the stuff and the memories of a second man who wasn´t coming back to her.

* * *

She spent the lonely evenings as she had always liked to do it since David had died. She opened the compulsive bottle of wine or beer that she would never finish. She listened through his old record collection.

Besides the trouble which that brute of a mutant had just given her, she sometimes glimpsed parts of her old self. It seemed that the old and at the same time younger Sethra finally seemed to find her way back to these spheres. She could enjoy the time here now without being overwhelmed by grief about her loss every time, but starting to enjoy the memories. Nobody would ever be able to take them away. She remembered the uncertainness, the obstructions, the doubts she had felt when they had offered her the new job, but they had vanished. She realized that she had had trouble to take the smallest decisions during the last months – always uncertain. Like a child that had gotten lost. Though she had thought to know what would be best for her – David´s calm approval had been missing. She hoped that realizing this meant that she was overcoming it now.

She stayed for a few days. Occasionally visited Donna at town. Arranged what had to be arranged about the house. "So you decided against selling it ?" Donna had asked her. She had nodded. "Too many memories", she had only answered, and the friend hadn´t pressed the matter.


	37. Epilogue: a black cats soul

**Ladies and gentleman - last chapter ! Enjoy.**

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She went to bed that night looking forward to the upcoming weeks, ready to let bygones be bygones. There were only a few days left to gher stuff packed, at least that stuff she wanted to take with her when she moved. She needed to find a permanent home there – her first flat of her own. She needed to become acquainted to work with injured and traumatized people. She still needed a lot of training to get back in form herself. But she was quite content with the so far achieved results. Cameron could tell, she thought, smiling to herself. But there were tons of new stuff to take care of. And she was willing to do that.

She had again trouble to find some sleep, but for the first time for weeks out of excitement.

Some time after midnight, she finally went downstairs for a drink. She snatched a bottle of water out of the fridge and indulged in half a bar of chocolate. She brought herself up to the counter. Letting the sweet melt on her tongue, she suddenly remembered some weird detail of something she had read months ago. About cats not being able to taste sweetness as a consequence of some missing protein or something. From her place on the counter, she re-opened the fridge´s door again, staring at its contents for a moment. Then she grabbed the rest of the chocolate and let the door fall shut again.

She finished the bar and the drink, then slipped from the counter back to her feet, leaving the mess of her nighttime snack there.

Out of a sudden impulse, instead of returning to the bed, she changed direction and went straight out to the veranda.

It took a few seconds until her eyes had adjusted to the darkness around her. The light falling through the door from the kitchen lightened only a few steps out here.

There it was. A massive frame. Sturdy. Powerful. Handsome. His eyes narrowed because of the sudden bright artificial light. He had settled down in his favourite chair, long legs apart, forearms resting on the armrests casually. One clawed hand holding a bottle of beer. His eyes gleamed catlike for a moment in the darkness – something she had rarely witnessed.

The figure there in the shadows of the veranda meant trouble. Radiated danger. Pure menace. He looked bad tempered as well. In fact, instead of looking guilty of being caught lingering around on her veranda, he stared at her like she´d been late, letting him sit and wait here for her for hours.

For some moments, she felt unable to move. He wouldn´t speak. Like he never would after a quarrel or another incident. She couldn't decide which kind of greeting would be right – like she never could when they hadn´t seen each other for a while. For a minute or two, she let her inner turmoil seethe. Finally, she crossed the distance between them. She stepped behind him, slipping her hands cautiously over his shoulders and down his chest ´til she had to bend forward to him in a lose embrace. She softly kissed his neck.

"Aren´t you afraid ?" he asked. She caressed his neck and bearded cheek for a moment with her lips. "Right now, only a little bit." Her tone was calm, almost casual. Again, her voice told him something completely different from the messages in her scent. "What about three weeks ago ?" he asked roughly. She shrugged. "Oh. That´s another thing."

He hated her for a moment for having stepped out to the veranda. Catching him there. Still, it left him stunned that she dind´t hesitate to touch him.

He shouldn´t have come here. But he had wanted to face it. Sniff her fear. Watch her avoiding to look into his eyes. Force her to do so to see the rejection and the dread there. "You could have died."

"I didn´t." She opened her embrace. The touch of her skin vanished and caused him to shift uncomfortably while she rounded the chair. "I could die every time I cross a street, you know." He snarled. _Not the same._ He couldn´t believe that she still misjudged things that badly. "Do you really think they´d have spared you ?" he growled angrily. She stared down at him for a moment. "Do _you_ really think I´d do so ?" she asked back quietly. "You were in deadly danger out there." She sighed, rounding the chair completely, stopping to let him prepare for her to ensconce herself on his lap. He realized that he followed the unspoken request almost unconsciously. She settled down astride there. "Well, you´re a dangerous man." "Do you _want_ to die ?" he barked. "Stop that!" she ordered sharply. He watched her in surprise. "What do you want to hear ? That I´d liked to wet my pants out there ? I almost did! I am not an idiot!" He didn´t answer, but for once, she could see different emotions washing over his face. She could easily guess his thoughts. What if he hadn´t been there in that moment ? If he had left her there, angry after their quarrel. Or had just been out for a walk, as he had been so often ? "Nothing happened to me", she finally resumed.

She hadn´t watched much of the torturing he had done to that guy. The little she had seen had been enough. The outcry the man had finally died with had made her blood run cold. It was irrational to believe that he wouldn´t be able to do the same to a woman, too.

She simply refused to think about the fact that that guy had died by the same clawed hands that softly stroked her hair and back right now.

"I don´t want to put you in danger", he stated lowly. She drew closer to him. "Then don´t leave me alone", she answered, teasing cautiously. He growled again. "They were not even after us, were they ?" Though they had obviously known him and Wilson. "Though I´d really like to meet that friend of yours who owned the house." Obviously, from the little talk there, a woman. A woman somebody had sent about a dozen of heavily armed men after to kill her. "Would she have survived ?"

He watched her for a long time before he finally answered. "Maybe. She´s a class five mutant, with quite a range of combined mutations." He paused. Still, that girl was frail. Unprotected and attacked by many, she still might have failed. "Did you warn her ?" she asked. Silly question. It had been one of the first things Wilson had done after they had left the hunting lodge. Sethra had obviously missed that, still in shock. He remembered her, half huddled up on the backseat. The absent, horror stricken expression on her face. The shock in her eyes.

Still, she hadn´t run. Had stood her ground. Kept her nerves. Even without knowing whom or why she was fighting. "Have you ever been to a real fight before?" he suddenly asked. She snuffled for a moment. "No. I was abroad for a while. But never in the real danger zone." Wilson had asked him about her after their visit at Catherine´s, but he had denied to reveal the slightest bit of information. The merc had only laughed and shrugged, throwing an estimating glance to the sedated girl on the backseat. _"Looks like Kitty´s got claws",_ had been his only comment.

"You occasionally said that certain bloody things constitute your nature." The edges of his mouth twitched in light amusement at her choice of words. His gaze flew to her eyes, awaiting her to continue. "I always thought of that as an excuse. A bad one." "It´s true", he told her. She shook her head. "No. It´s not. It may be _in_ your nature. A part of it." _But not everything._ She shifted her weight. "But like it or not, some bastard blessed you with the quite displeasing gift of a conscience, too."

"So you´re not scared." It was more a statement than a question. He could smell it, anyway. There was anger. Even rage. Seemed that she wanted to save that to try and make him pay for it later. A whiff of arousal.

No fear.

She let her gaze wonder over his face for a moment, considering her answer, slightly shivering in the cold air of the night. Then she frowned. "No. Not tonight." She bent forward and kissed him. "Come to bed now, big man. If it makes you feel better, I promise I´ll be scared of you again tomorrow." She intended to get up, but he didn´t allow her to leave, hesitating.

No rejection.

"How did you know ?" he asked.

"That you were there ?" she asked back.

She could have told him that she had still hoped and suspected him to return.

She could have told him that she had been tempted to walk out to the veranda the nights before, too, but had thought of that as just too childish – and senseless.

She could have politely lied about woman´s intuition.

She could have told him that the only proof confirming her suspicions this night had been a bottle of beer missing from the fridge.

She didn't.

Instead, she nestled down in the warmth of his body, against his chest, contented. She smiled.

"Looks like I sometimes get a glimpse right into a black cat´s soul."

**- the end -**

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_**I want to thank all my readers and revie**__**wers for their perseverance, time and support! **_

_**My original intention was to write about Victor meeting the other X men characters, too – but the story about him and Sethra grew and grew, so I decided somewhere down the road to concentrate on their relationship first and bring the others guys into it later. But when I started, I also thought I would write perhaps a dozen of chapters, as a maximum ;-)**_

_**So if you still don´t have enough of my obsession with a certain feral mutant – and I can tell that I really really love Liev Schreiber´s great performance as Victor Creed/Sabretooth and I got loads of ideas left – please check out the sequel, "Burning times" – first chapter´s up, so you won´t need to wait ;-)**_


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